Facebook's 7 Friends Rule
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A discussion about key product metrics that indicate long-term user retention and engagement, centered around Facebook's "7 friends in 10 days" discovery.
Facebook's Key Retention Metric
- Users who add 7 friends in first 10 days become long-term users
- This represents the "aha moment" when users get actual value from the product
- Once users hit this threshold, they become "super sticky"
Product "Aha Moments" Examples
- Facebook: Seeing 7 different friends on feed within 10 days
- Mint.com: Seeing all financials laid out in budget/pie chart format
- The Hustle Newsletter: Opening 5 out of first 7 daily emails
- Key principle: Each product has a specific engagement threshold that predicts long-term usage
The Hustle's Engagement Findings
- Core metric: Users who open 5 out of first 7 daily emails become "gold" users
- New feature "Snippets":
- Users fill out preferences for customized email content
- Longer onboarding flow
- Results in 3-4x more engaged users
User Engagement Philosophy
- Debate: Do engaged users self-select or does engagement create power users?
- Sam's theory: The onboarding process itself creates power users
- Small "indoctrination" steps convert casual users to power users
- Similar to "confidence through action" principle
- Shaan's perspective: Both dynamics occur simultaneously
- Natural power users will eagerly complete steps
- Casual users can be converted through proper engagement mechanisms
Key Takeaway
The right onboarding process and engagement metrics can predict and create long-term user retention, making it crucial to identify and optimize these moments early in the user journey.
Sam Parr
Host of MFM and fitness influencer
Sam Parr is a serial entrepreneur and business media pioneer.
In 2016, he founded The Hustle, a business news media company that started in his kitchen with just $12 and grew to eight figures in revenue.
Sam led the charge in making newsletters popular when few believed in their potential.
After four successful years, he sold The Hustle to HubSpot, a publicly traded company. Now operating as HubSpot Media, The Hustle reaches 3 million readers daily, employs a team of nearly 100, and has been the launchpad for dozens of its staff to found their own media companies and newsletters.
Sam remains the host of the popular business podcast, My First Million, and continues to start and sell companies. He also co-founded Hampton, a highly vetted community for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs, and teaches people to write better through his platform, Copy That.