20VC: Why It Is All Still About User Growth and How To Address Retention For A Consumer Social App with Mike Mignano, Co-Founder & CEO @ Anchor

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2016

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mike Mignano is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Anchor, the app that allows you to share and engage with your network via audio, essentially radio for the people. Prior to founding Anchor, Mike was Head of Product @ Aviary, prior to it's acquisition by Adobe. Anchor was one of the hottest products at SXSW this year and has received funding from our good friends at Homebrew, SV Angel, Betaworks, Eniac Ventures, Scott Belsky and many more.

In Today's Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How did Mike come to found one of the hottest new audio startups, Anchor?

2.) Why have we seen such a renaissance of podcast listening? Will this continue in the long term future and if so, what will drive the long term future growth?

3.) How did Mike use the beta testing phase to learn and iterate on customer behaviour? Following this, how did he implement this feedback to create a community that could be harnessed on launch?

4.) When examining alongside Sarah Tavel's hierarchy of engagement, how does Mike address retention and the creation of virtuous loops within Anchor?

5.) How does Mike fundamentally attempt to menthes Anchor? At what level of growth can the cash taps be turned on? How can Anchor be made to be revenue generating for both the platform and content creators?

Items Mentioned In Today's Episode:

Mike's Fave Blog: The Skimm

Mike's Fave Book: Cat's Cradle

Sarah Tavel's Hierarchy of Engagement

Jakob Nielsen UX Designer

As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Mike on Twitter here!

If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!

The Twenty Minute VC is brought to you by Leesa, the Warby Parker or TOMS shoes of the mattress industry. Lees have done away with the terrible mattress showroom buying experience by creating a luxury premium foam mattress that is order completely online and ships for free to your doorstep. The 10 inch mattress comes in all sizes and is engineered with 3 unique foam layers for a universal, adaptive feel, including 2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of a really cool latex foam called Avena, design to keep you cool. All Leesa mattresses are 100% US or UK made and for every 10 mattresses they sell, they donate one to a shelter. Go to Leesa.com/VC and enter the promo code VC75 to get $75 off!

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the 20-minute VC in this very special episode of Founders Friday with your host, Harry Stebbings.
0:06.0	And before we jump into the show, Stay, would you like to join me in entering the offices of the world's most prestigious VCs and startups?
0:13.0	Then you can follow me on Snapchat at H. Stebbings with two B's for all the lowdown.
0:18.4	And joining me today is a guest who, when I spoke to the VC community,
0:22.0	they all said they wanted to hear from this man. Therefore, I'm thrilled to welcome Mike Mignano,
0:27.1	co-founder and CEO at Anchor. Anchor allows you to share and engage with your network via
0:33.0	audio, essentially radio for the people. And prior to founding Anchor, Mike was head of product at Avery, before it was acquired by Adobe.
0:40.3	And Anchor really was one of the hottest products at South by Southwest this year,
0:44.3	and has received funding from our good friends at Homebrew, who we had Satya on the show,
0:49.3	SV Angel, BetaWorks, who we had Matt Hartman on the show, any adventures, we had Hadley Harris on the show,
0:55.7	and Scott Belski, and many, many more. However, before we dive into our show today, it is Friday,
1:01.0	which means the weekend and the Sast-Day line is drawing ever closer, and there is no better
1:05.3	Sastay line than one in a Lisa mattress. Why? Well, these mattresses are not just any mattresses.
1:11.6	They're engineered to perfection, with three unique layers, including two inches of memory foam and two inches of
1:16.7	latex light foam designed to keep you cool. Not only are they engineered to perfection,
1:21.8	but all Lisa mattresses are made in the UK and the US and can be shipped for free to the UK,
1:27.1	US and Canada. Another thing I love
1:29.2	about Lisa is mattress buying is for me a big deal and a rare deal and I really want to make sure
1:34.7	I have the right one. Well with Lisa you can as they offer a 100-night trial. So what's the risk?
1:41.1	Head over to Lisa.com forward slash VC. That's L-E-E-S-A.com
1:46.6	forward slash VC and enter the promo code VC-75 at checkout to get a cool $75 off. And every time
1:53.5	Lisa sell 10 matches, they donate one to a shelter. So awesome. Also, if you haven't already
	...

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