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What Albert Cheng thinks about product management

@albert-cheng · 26 positions · 0 changes of mind

Head of growth at Chess.com, previously growth and monetization lead at Grammarly and Duolingo and a product manager at Google.

Albert Cheng did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

6 dated positions, 2025, in their own words. Our reading of what Albert Cheng has said — not written or endorsed by them.

  1. Our readingOnly 30 to 50 percent of product experiments win, because consumer behaviour is too unpredictable to be predicted from a hypothesis.

    Their wordsI mean in my experience the typical win rate and I hate to use that term for experiments is is often something like 30 to 50%. Like usually you're not actually get like you're trying a bunch of things a lot of hypotheses turn out not to be true. you know, consumer products are very unpredictable like that.

    ↗Finding hidden growth opportunities in your product | Albert Cheng (Duolingo, Grammarly, Chess.com)youtube.com 3rd of 26 in this recording

  3. Our readingA freemium product's free tier should sample everything the paid product can do, because a limited free experience teaches users the product is limited.

    Their wordsand so I think this is interesting just modernization learning that especially if you work on a premium product try to have your free product be a reflection of like everything that your product can offer you. Obviously, to an extent, there's some costs involved with some of the paid features and things like that, but it generally will pay it for itself if you're able to put your best foot forward um and go do that.

    ↗Finding hidden growth opportunities in your product | Albert Cheng (Duolingo, Grammarly, Chess.com)youtube.com 7th of 26 in this recording

  5. Our readingFor a product you install rather than open, activation is the decisive moment and it carries the user for years.

    Their wordsOne exception is that Grammarly was a different type of product in that you install it and you don't proactively open it every day. So that was kind of interesting to me because I assume that you should always just focus on existing user retention. But for a product like Grammarly, it's actually the activation, installation, aha moment that's really really critical and will carry the user for a very very long time.

    ↗Finding hidden growth opportunities in your product | Albert Cheng (Duolingo, Grammarly, Chess.com)youtube.com 12th of 26 in this recording

  7. Our readingGrowth is not metrics hacking: the job is to connect users to the value of the product.

    Their wordsI like to describe growth as the the job is to connect users to the value of your product.

    ↗Finding hidden growth opportunities in your product | Albert Cheng (Duolingo, Grammarly, Chess.com)youtube.com 18th of 26 in this recording

  9. Our readingYou cannot manufacture virality, but you can find the moments users already screenshot and make those moments far better.

    Their wordsSo as opposed to going against I guess human intuition and trying to get them to share stuff that they otherwise wouldn't on the margins want to share like lean into it more actually like grab the moments where users are already organically screenshotting and make those much much much better and you can kind of 5x or 10x and and drive a lot of growth that way too.

    ↗Finding hidden growth opportunities in your product | Albert Cheng (Duolingo, Grammarly, Chess.com)youtube.com 22nd of 26 in this recording

  11. Our readingDoing PR before you have evidence customers want the thing is risky, because the publicity creates a sunk cost that makes the team see a failing product through.

    Their wordsAnd the third one is like we did a lot of actually PR uh prior to the service going out just to get the word out. Um and you know PR has has its time and place. Uh but I think doing it before you have validation that customers definitely want the thing is quite risky. It can lead to a lot of sunk cost uh once you get it out because you're you're just you know you need to see it through.

    ↗Finding hidden growth opportunities in your product | Albert Cheng (Duolingo, Grammarly, Chess.com)youtube.com 26th of 26 in this recording