AMA with Jorge Mazal
Former Chief Product Officer at Duolingo, Jorge Mazal takes us on his journey of reigniting growth by 4.5x at Duolingo. Get an inside look at how he approaches gamification, a/b testing, and the search for new growth vectors.
“One of the biggest wins that the team can have is discovering growth vectors. And once you have a vector stick with it. You can always squeeze more juice out of some of these vectors very fast through iteration and experimentation.”
💡 Key Moments
- Reaching a local maximum and knowing when to find a new hill to climb
- Identifying Duolingo's North Star metric and how to move it forward
- Finding a growth vector and optimizing it for all its worth
- How to get internal buy-in after a high-profile failure
- What you can do to run better A/B tests
- How redesigning the homescreen created a new growth hill and a path for personalization
▶️ Session play-by-play
- (06:30) Context setting and why Duolingo needed to find a new growth hill to climb
- (12:42) What to watch out for when copying from others (and other gamification stories)
- (15:45) How to avoid wasteful a/b tests
- (19:00) Reaching a local maximum and knowing when to find a new hill to climb
- (20:25) Identifying Duolingo's North Star metric and how to move it forward
- (22:58) Building a growth model and running projects to identify biggest leverage points
- (27:04) The experiment that really moved the needle. The first big retention win.
- (28:31) Finding a growth vector and optimizing it for all its worth
- (31:08) Setting guardrails around push notifications
- (40:33) How to get internal buy-in after a high-profile failure
- (43:16) What you can do to run better a/b tests
- (45:50) The search for truth and how data, insights, and experience can get you close to it
- (47:29) Why generalists have an advantage when it comes to growth
- (49:28) How redesigning the homescreen created a new growth hill and a path for personalization
The People
Jorge was the Chief Product Officer at Duolingo and currently advises startups that build "good for you" habits. He has been at the forefront of driving growth at leading technology companies like Zynga and MyFitnessPal. Jorge first started his career in marketing, went on to work at a non-profit, and ended up in product management after getting his MBA.
Franciska is the Head of Growth Marketing at Amplitude, a leading digital analytics platform that helps companies build better products. She has been with the company since 2021 when she started as a Senior Product Manager working on the developer experience.
See you at our next AMA! 🎤
Our upcoming AMA is with Leah Tharin, Head of Product at Jua.ai. Leah is also known as a thought leader sharing best practices and insights on product-led growth. And she's the author of beloved newsletter, ProducTea with Leah Tharin.