How Super.com Drives Billion-Dollar Growth with Amplitude

Super.com began in 2016 as an SMS-based service to help people find discounted hotel rooms. In less than ten years, Super.com has evolved into an app that helps people save money with discounts, earn money by playing games or taking surveys, and build credit. The Super.com team has acquired 7 million paying customers worldwide, helped people save over $200 million, and made over $1 billion in sales.

Super.com continues to thrive despite economic conditions that have hit the rest of the tech industry hard: In March 2024, the company announced its Series C fundraising round, which closed at $85 million. And Super.com has used Amplitude’s Digital Analytics Platform to drive data-driven growth “since day zero,” says Henry Shi, co-founder of Super.com.

Henry sat down with Tiffen Dano-Kwan, the chief marketing officer at Amplitude, during Mobile Apps Unlocked (MAU) Vegas 2024 to share more about how Super.com scaled so rapidly. Read on for a recap of their conversation.

Experiment, experiment, experiment

Super.com has a transparent, data-driven culture, and the team works consistently to reinforce that culture.

Every single metric has a tracking dashboard visible to everyone in the company. Every week, they have a company-wide business review where everyone reviews key metrics together. In those weekly meetings, the team also highlights people who demonstrate their data-driven values.

Super.com also encourages a Socratic approach—anybody can ask questions or challenge assumptions. “If you don’t have the data or first principles to back up your claim, it’s hard for you to keep pushing that claim,” explains Henry. That means everyone is encouraged to base their decisions on solid data and analysis.

The team uses experiments across the organization to drive their decisions about where to invest. “We’re constantly iterating, running experiments, and compounding wins,” says Henry.

But for experimentation to work, it has to be accessible. Leadership provides the team with support, education, and tools to conduct analyses and expand the analytics function. Henry explains that anyone can have a strong idea—the easier you make it to test, the better your ideas will get. “It’s just a question of a number of bats, and the more bats you have, the better you are going to hit,” says Henry.

With Amplitude Experiment, it’s easy for everyone to run experiments and gather new data. Team members don’t need to know how to do complex statistics or write SQL to pull insights: “You just click, drag and drop, and it’s really intuitive,” explains Henry. That ease of use is evident in the numbers: 60% of the company uses Amplitude weekly.

Since using Amplitude to focus on retention, Super.com has seen a 90% increase in month-one retention. They’ve also seen a 40% year-over-year increase in bookings. Aside from the quantitative impact, Henry explains a significant benefit has been how Ampltidue empowers the team to drive results. “You don’t need to ask a data scientist. You can just do it yourself,” he says.

Be efficient with your channels

Traditionally, startups work to find product market fit. But with millions of startups doing the same thing, PMF is no longer enough. It’s also important to use the right channels, which means being selective.

The team is decisive about cutting channels that aren’t driving results. “If you can find one channel that works well, that can be most of your success,” explains Henry. Sometimes, you may be spending on underperforming channels you didn’t even realize you had.

Don’t be afraid of cutting channels. Henry admits it can feel scary, “but you’ll do it, and you’ll realize you didn’t really see a change in your installs.”

That said, make sure you’re measuring against the right goal—one that aligns with what you want to optimize for. Let’s say a campaign on one channel drives more installs but with weaker monetization or retention. If your goal is acquisition, you may want to prioritize that channel. However, if you want to optimize for something else, you may decide to cut it.

The Super.com team uses Amplitude to assess and improve the impact of new channels. They’ve seen a 35% increase in conversion rate for acquisition of their fintech products as a result.

Unite functions with mission-aligned teams (MATs)

Another ingredient in Super.com’s success is its organizational structure. Inspired by Amazon’s Single Threaded Owner (STO) model, they have mission-aligned teams: MATs. Each team has a single mission, the tools and resources they need to achieve that mission, and a range of folks from different functions—like product, engineering, marketing, and data. Everyone still reports to a functional manager, so they maintain career development, but they work day-to-day with their mission-aligned team.

The decision to switch to the MAT structure came from frustration with misalignment. “You have one team doing something, a team doing something else, and then they would depend on each other, but their roadmaps wouldn’t align,” explains Henry. Now, teams are streamlined and have full autonomy to achieve the mission they’re accountable for. The missions are captured through goals, metrics, and OKRs.

If you’re aiming to unite different functions around data-driven decisions, Henry recommends clearly defining your North Star goals. Write them out to make sure you don’t change your mind later. Focus on seeking truth in your experiments instead of trying to prove yourself right.