How to drive word of mouth | Nilan Peiris (CPO of Wise)

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Lenny Rachitsky

Business, Technology, Entrepreneurship

5.0 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2023

⏱️ 77 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Brought to you by Pendo—The all-in-one platform for product-led companies building breakthrough digital experiences | Wix Studio—The web creation platform built for agencies | Masterworks—Invest in blue-chip art

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Nilan Peiris is Chief Product Officer at Wise, one of the fastest-growing (and profitable) tech companies in the world. Wise allows anyone to send money in more than 60 currencies to over 160 countries at low cost, and throughout its history has grown primarily through word of mouth. In today’s episode, we discuss:

• Tactical advice on driving word of mouth (WOM)

• Strategies for measuring WOM

• How NPS surveys helped Wise determine their growth and product strategy

• How Wise incentivizes teams to do the hard things

• The small change that generated a 3x increase in referrals

• How Wise structures its product and growth teams

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Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennyspodcast.com/how-to-drive-word-of-mouth-nilan-peiris-cpo-of-wise/#transcript

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Where to find Nilan Peiris:

• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/nilanp

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nilanpeiris/

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Nilan’s background

(03:27) A brief overview of Wise

(06:11) How word of mouth is measured

(07:56) Why Wise leaned into WOM

(10:21) Why Wise built their WOM motion using the NPS method

(16:13) How WOM solves trust problems

(18:55) How to get to 9 or 10 on the NPS scale

(20:51) Determining what will wow users

(21:31) Common missteps companies make when trying to drive WOM

(23:24) Using the “working backward” method at Airbnb

(25:45) How Wise is able to offer drastically lower money transfer fees

(27:51) The three costs associated with moving money

(32:02) Rational vs. irrational reasons behind recommendations

(34:11) Prioritizing customer happiness

(38:14) How Wise approaches experimentation

(46:11) Thoughts on performance reviews and general analysis

(48:06) How Wise provides a 10x better banking experience

(51:57) Advice on how to approach word-of-mouth marketing

(53:47) Building a culture of doing hard things

(55:59) The macrostructure of international banking and where Wise fits in

(57:54) How Wise solves for local regulations in their onboarding flow

(1:01:49) How Wise structures teams

(1:03:26) The small change that generated a 3x increase in referrals

(1:08:01) Nilan’s philanthropic endeavors

(1:09:13) Lightning round

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Referenced:

• Wise: https://wise.com/us/

• Henry Chen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/henry-h-chen/

• About NPS: https://www.productboard.com/blog/the-power-of-nps-in-your-product-strategy/

• How Snow White helped Airbnb prove that storytelling is the most important skill in design: https://uxdesign.cc/how-airbnb-proved-that-storytelling-is-the-most-important-skill-in-design-15d04ac71039

• Seth Godin: This Is How You Create a Remarkable Product: https://www.businessinsider.com/seth-godin-this-is-how-you-create-a-remarkable-product-2012-10

• Discover the Spotify model: https://www.atlassian.com/agile/agile-at-scale/spotify

• Beam: https://beam.org/

• Affinity: https://affinityghana.com/

• Crime and Punishment: https://www.amazon.com/Crime-Punishment-Volokhonsky-Translation-Classics/dp/0679734503

• Midnight’s Children: https://www.amazon.com/Midnights-Children-Modern-Library-Novels/dp/0812976533

• Barbie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1517268/

• Arc browser: https://arc.net/

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Some people focus on conversion rate, like I'm going to make this really, really slick.
0:04.0	And that's cool, you get a bit more growth.
0:06.0	To get to recommendation, you could blow your users' socks off.
0:10.0	You have to give them an experience they didn't know as previously possible.
0:14.8	And when you're in that place of doing something that no one is ever done before,
0:19.6	that's where you get it.
0:27.2	Welcome to Lenny's podcast where I interview world-class product leaders and growth experts to learn from their hard-wound experiences building and growing today's most successful
0:31.0	products.
0:32.0	Today my guest is Nelan Puris. Nalan is Chief
0:35.2	Product Officer at Wies, where he's been for over 11 years, basically from the
0:39.1	beginning of the journey. If you're not familiar with Wies, you should be. They make it incredibly easy and cheap to send money internationally.
0:45.6	I am a regular user and customer. And because the product is so great, they've grown primarily through word of mouth.
0:52.2	About 70% of their growth comes through word of mouth.
0:55.0	And in our conversation, Naland breaks down exactly how they made word of mouth so successful for their product.
1:01.0	I don't know any founder who wouldn't wish to have more word-of-mouth growth,
1:04.8	and Nelan's advice is the most tactical and useful advice I've ever heard for how to actually drive your word-of-mouth growth.
1:11.2	I am really excited for you to this episode and to learn from
1:14.2	Nelan. And so with that I bring you Nelan Pyrras after a short word from our sponsors.
1:20.7	This episode is brought to you by Pendo, the all-in-one platform for product light companies
1:25.4	building breakthrough digital experiences. With all the tools you need all in one simple-to-use
1:30.9	platform, Pendo makes it easy to answer critical questions about how
1:34.5	users are engaging with your product and then turn those insights into action. With
	...

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