LinkedIn Global Vice President: The growth process from 0 to 500 million users

I joined LinkedIn in 2011, and since then I have worked with the growth team to advance a series of major projects including viral communication , people you may know, search engine optimization ( SEO ), new user onboarding experience (On Boarding), entering the Chinese market, etc., and successfully increased the number of LinkedIn users from 100 million to 500 million today.

Let me share with you some of the more important factors in the growth process. I hope this can bring some inspiration to everyone and help everyone to achieve better growth.

LinkedIn's website was officially launched in May 2003. In the early days, there were few users on LinkedIn. Relying on the team members' fame and connections in Silicon Valley, we invited the first batch of seed users and completed the cold start . In the early days, we focused on user product engagement and retention rather than rushing to expand.

Around 2006, we found that the number of users coming from SEO channels was similar to that of users invited by email, but their activity was 3 times or even more than that of users invited by email. Based on this discovery, we launched the “User Profile” feature and made it easier to discover through Google search. This product feature has led to an explosive growth in our organic traffic , with more and more users searching for the names of people they are interested in on Google and coming to LinkedIn's products. This is a milestone in the evolution of LinkedIn's products.

1.2 Channel expansion and internationalization period (2008-2011)

Once the product and market are matched, it becomes particularly important to quickly find growth channels. LinkedIn's growth team was also established at this time. In 2008, we formed a cross-functional growth team of about 15 people to focus on user acquisition. A core task of the growth team is to identify key channels, break down all driving factors and continuously optimize them. I will introduce this in more detail later.

At the same time, we took the first step towards internationalization. In 2008, LinkedIn opened its first international office in London and launched Spanish and French websites. When LinkedIn is translated into local languages, we see 100% or higher growth in local markets. In 2011, on LinkedIn's eighth anniversary, we successfully listed on the New York Stock Exchange .

1.3 M&A expansion and internationalization period (2012-2016)

After becoming a listed company, we still maintained a high growth rate; at the same time, we invested more time in improving user activity. The entire user life cycle (acquisition, activation, connection, retention , recall, notification, etc.) is included in the scope of growth work.

In 2012, we acquired four companies, including Slideshare, which greatly enhanced our talent, product and technology capabilities. At the same time, we continue to expand our international markets, including China and India.

1.4 New era of cooperation with Microsoft (2016- )

Looking back at LinkedIn's 15-year development history, it was a very wise decision to take one step at a time and correctly identify what to do at different stages.

2.1 Growth Team Structure

LinkedIn’s growth team currently has more than 100 people, divided into three major groups: Core Growth, International & Segment Growth, and Data Products . Each group has its own core tasks.

• The core growth group focuses on optimizing different stages of the user life cycle , including how users find us using search engines , onboarding for new users, network connections and growth, in-product notifications and user communications, etc.

• The Internationalization Group is responsible for the development of international markets and the localization of products. We have made great progress in the Chinese and Indian markets, and we are currently exploring emerging markets including Germany and Japan.

• The data product group provides good data product support based on data related to growth needs, including experiments, reports, standardization, etc.

The internationalization department is responsible for maximizing the acquisition of users in emerging markets, the core growth department is responsible for user growth, and the data product department provides quantitative support: each department performs its own duties and cooperates with each other to jointly promote LinkedIn's rapid growth.

2.2 Recruiting a Growth Team

It’s important to have the right people in the right jobs, and this applies to growth teams as well. Growth strategies are easy to change, but the people on the growth team are difficult to change, and the cost of hiring the wrong person is very high. So, what qualities do people need to meet in a growth team?

People in the growth team must be very sensitive to data, good at analysis, and have the ability to analyze development trends and draw conclusions.

2) Good at problem solving

Many people can talk about things very well , but few can actually solve the problem. In a growth team, the more you experiment, the faster you grow, and the more you learn, so problem-solving skills are extremely important.

3) Curious – like to ask why

Don’t take a lot of things for granted, as a member of the growth team he must remain curious. He must ask: Why does the user behave this way? Why don’t users use our products? Why did this indicator drop so sharply?

4) Have new ideas – ask why not

In addition to asking why it is like this, he also needs to ask why it is not like this. To achieve growth, we must have the ability to find more new solutions.

5) Learn and draw on the growth experience of predecessors

To be honest, it’s really hard to find people with growth experience. Even at LinkedIn, most of the people on my team had no prior growth experience, but they later grew into very good people in growth. A lot of people make the mistake of building a growth team by jumping right in and looking to hire someone with past growth experience. But in fact you can be more open-minded, basic skills are more important.

As shown in the picture below, Viddy had a very rapid growth in 2012 and was called the video version of Instagram. If you only look at the number of daily active users (DAU), then this is indeed miraculous growth.

Taking LinkedIn as an example, the core value of our product is to allow users to build their own social networks . We found that users who add people they know as friends have a higher long-term retention rate, and those who have an even better retention rate are those who are added as friends by people they know as soon as they register. Because when you just register, you receive friend requests from people you know, which is a very valuable and friendly experience for users.

When we realized this, we tried our best to guide new users to build their own social networks on LinkedIn as early as possible, which was very effective in retaining new users. It’s not just new users, you also need to focus on retaining old users to ensure they continue to get value from your product. When your retention rate is good, you can start growing.

Once your core metrics are determined, you need to define your growth channels by asking yourself some fundamental questions about user behavior.

For example, do users share your product through word of mouth? This question will determine whether you need to spend time and energy on virality and recommendations. If users are willing to share your product, then you need to make the user sharing experience as smooth as possible. Of course, the above questions cannot represent all, but they represent a way of thinking about finding growth channels.

At LinkedIn, we have developed two core growth channels: first, viral user growth through users building their own social networks; second, organic traffic from people’s public resumes using search engine optimization.

In addition, we have also expanded other channels, such as mobile strategy, internationalization, partners, etc. I want to emphasize that relying on a single growth channel is a strategic mistake; once the core channel is established, the company should invest in strategic channels such as new platforms.

At LinkedIn, our vision is to create economic opportunity for every worker in the world. Our growth team achieves this by connecting “users – businesses – schools”, so we value user activity and engagement rather than the number of registrations.

2. Choose a North Star Metric to Measure Growth

To grow, you need to define a North Star Metric. This metric should be consistent with your business model and measure the value of your users, preferably in the form of a sum.

3. Products and services first, growth second

Investing in growth is a huge waste if your product has poor retention! We need to keep observing product retention rates over the long term and continuously optimize and improve them through customer feedback. In short, high-quality products and services are the cornerstone of growth.