Thread by @lennysan

Q: I work at a Fintech company — how would you think about growth for us? Our main challenge is building trust with users.

Here's a bit of advice for how to turn this challenge into an opportunity. First of all, let’s talk about ways you can build trust with your users (1/17)👇

1. Social proof: If people that *you* trust are using a product, you’ll certainly be more likely to trust it. Help your users see that people just like them are already using and loving your product. (2/17)
blog.hubspot.com/marketing/soci…

2. Authority: If someone in authority has vetted a product, you’re a lot more likely to trust it. How might you surface certifications, badges, awards, seals, or endorsements from authority figures? Make sure your users see these early and often. (3/17)
nngroup.com/articles/autho…

3. Guarantees: If something goes wrong, who’s got my back? How might you make your users feel like they’ll be safe and protected no matter what? The Airbnb Host Guarantee was an incredibly powerful tool for getting new hosts over the hump. (4/17)
airbnb.com/guarantee

4. Reputation: Reviews from other users (e.g. Yelp reviews, Uber reviews, Airbnb reviews) are one of the most powerful ways to communicate trust. If many other people have had a good time, it’s likely you will too. Here’s a good read on this topic. (5/17)
sloanreview.mit.edu/article/online…

5. Great UX: A badly designed site/app immediately introduces suspicion. Particularly when dealing with money. Pay attention to the details — the resolution of images, padding, grammar, performance. Listen for these issues in user research. (6/17)
ted.com/talks/joe_gebb…

6. Deliver: Word-of-mouth spreads is no joke. Particularly if you do something wrong. At the same time, if you consistently provide a great experience, and deliver on your promise — that’s how you’ll build real long-term trust. (7/17)
fourweekmba.com/amazon-flywhee…

With that in mind, three growth levers I’d suggest you explore: (8/17)

1. Top-of-funnel: Referrals. For a product that relies on trust, there’s nothing more powerful than an endorsement from a friend. Airbnb had a similar trust challenge, both on the guest side (“stay in a stranger’s home, are you crazy?”) and ... (9/17)

(cont.) Referrals : ...on the host side (“a stranger stay in my home, are you crazy??”). Referrals proved to be the single biggest attributable growth lever on both sides of the marketplace. (10/17)

(cont.) Referrals (cont.): ... When designing your referrals program, it’s important that (1) the referer has a meaningful incentive, that (2) this program is easily discoverable, and that (3) you are incentivizing the right behavior. (11/17)

2. Mid-funnel: Landing page(s). Start building trust from the first moment a user visits your site. How might you leverage some of the ideas I referenced above to instill a strong sense of trust in your product immediately? (12/17)

(cont.) Landing page: How might you continue that message throughout the flow? What concerns do people have, at which stage of the flow, and what are you doing to address them? Also, no matter what you’re selling — is the value prop for your product crystal clear? (13/17)

(cont.) Landing page(s): What will compel users to stick around? Make sure to show these pages to real users and listen to their reactions. Continue iterating on this indefinitely. (14/17)

3. End-of-funnel: Remind users of the value you’re providing. Without knowing what exactly it is your product is, I’ll assume that it’s a “set it and forget it” kind of service, where you sign-up, connect your financial accounts, and good things happen for me. (15/17)

(cont.) End-of-funnel: If true, then find ways to remind users of all of the good that you’re doing, and why they’d be fools for quitting. Wealthfront and Betterment do a great of this with a regular email showing me how much interest I’ve earned lifetime with them. (16/17)

Read more in the last edition of my newsletter (17/17)
lennyrachitsky.com/p/this-week-cu…