How to grow a subscription business | Yuriy Timen (Grammarly, Canva, Airtable)

**Yuriy Timen** (0:00)
The only thing that's worse than a channel or a tactic that you tried not working, the only thing that's worse than that is when you didn't give it the appropriate shot, right? And you prematurely or erroneously concluded that it doesn't work. And it's remarkable how often you find that to be the case when I talk to companies. Oh, YouTube?
We tried it, it doesn't work. Okay, can I see what you've tried? And then you look at it, you're like, oh, this thing was not designed to even have a shot at working from the get-go.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (0:40)
Yuriy Timen is a full-time advisor to companies looking to figure out their growth strategy. And he's worked with companies like Canva, Airtable, Otter, Whimsical, Hymns, Flo Health and a dozen others. I know a number of founders who have worked with Yuriy and they all tell me that he transformed how they think about their growth. Before becoming an advisor, he spent nine years at Grammarly where he led growth and marketing and helped turn it into the household name that it is today.
In our chat, we get incredibly tactical about all of the ways that you can grow your product, including when and how to invest in virality, SEO and paid growth, what's changing across each of those channels and the most common failure modes for B2C startups. This is the most tactical and actionable conversation I have had yet on how to grow your product, particularly a subscription product. And I'm really excited for you to hear it. With that, I bring you Yuriy Timen.
Hey, Ashley, Head of Marketing at Flatfile. How many B2B SaaS companies would you estimate need to import CSV files from their customers?

**SPEAKER_3** (1:44)
At least 40%.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (1:45)
And how many of them screw that up and what happens when they do?

**SPEAKER_3** (1:48)
Well, based on our data, about a third of people will consider switching to another company after just one bad experience during onboarding. So if your CSV importer doesn't work right, which is super common considering customer files are chock full of unexpected data and formatting, they'll leave.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (2:07)
I am 0% surprised to hear that. I've consistently seen that improving onboarding is one of the highest leverage opportunities for both sign-up conversion and increasing long-term retention.
Getting people to your aha moment more quickly and reliably is so incredibly important.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:23)
Totally. It's incredible to see how our customers like Square, Spotify and Zura are able to grow their businesses on top of Flatfile.
It's because flawless data onboarding acts like a catalyst to get them and their customers where they need to go faster.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (2:39)
If you'd like to learn more or get started, check out Flatfile at flatfile.com/lenny.
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Yuriy, welcome to the podcast.

**Yuriy Timen** (3:52)
Thanks for having me, Val. This is great.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (3:55)
It's even better for me.

**Yuriy Timen** (3:56)
Alright, alright.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (3:58)
So I'm going to give a quick bio. Let me know if I missed anything really important. You were head of growth at Grammarly. You spent nine years there, kind of doing all the things that helped turn that company into the killer product that it is today. You left that, I think, a couple years ago.
Now you're advising companies, mostly full time, I think mostly on growth strategy, and I think mostly consumer startups. Is that about right?

**Yuriy Timen** (4:21)
A couple of super critical corrections. Number one, it was only eight and a half years.

**Lenny Rachitsky** (4:27)
Usually people round those up. I'm impressed that you get active.

**Yuriy Timen** (4:31)
I figure eight and a half is long enough. So I mean, yeah, I'm not sure I want to round that up. I know, but I'm kidding, obviously.
Yeah, I mean, that's largely it. I mean, you know, Grammarly was a hell of a run and trying to take a step back from that. And that stepping back has kind of taken on a life of its own, you know, vis-a-vis advising.