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What Albert Cheng thinks about startups

@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.

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

  1. Our readingA growth team that only explores turns scattershot, and one that only exploits saturates — the job is to keep oscillating between the two.

    Their wordsIf you do too much exploration, you can have your team feel a little bit too scattershot, just trying a 100 different random ideas. What's the through line? What's the strategy? How do you pattern match, you know, successes across them? And if you do too much in exploitation, which is often the MMO of growth teams, it can lead to this like saturation and stagnation where you're just locally maximizing a thing.

    ↗Finding hidden growth opportunities in your product | Albert Cheng (Duolingo, Grammarly, Chess.com)youtube.com 1st of 26 in this recording

  3. Our readingA rising share of statistically insignificant experiments is the signal that a team has exploited an area too far and should go back to exploring.

    Their wordsAnd if I'm starting to see like more and more experiments that are not statistically significant, that may be a signal to me to say, okay, we might have kind of tried to exploit a little bit too far. Like there might not be as much juice to squeeze.

    ↗Finding hidden growth opportunities in your product | Albert Cheng (Duolingo, Grammarly, Chess.com)youtube.com 4th of 26 in this recording

  5. Our readingA consumer app with 30 to 40 percent day-one retention is in solid shape, and much below that calls the users' intent into question.

    Their wordsI think when you have your D1 retention somewhere around like the 30 or 40% mark, like that's quite solid, I think, for for a consumer app.

    ↗Finding hidden growth opportunities in your product | Albert Cheng (Duolingo, Grammarly, Chess.com)youtube.com 10th of 26 in this recording

  7. Our readingSteady experimentation is what a growth team controls, but the step changes come from outside waves the company did not create and would be foolish to ignore.

    Their wordsAnd it's like the growth experimentation is more the the the slow and steady or fast and steady, I should say, uh approach where you're just continually iterating. You're making the product experience better, but then every so often, right, there's a big wave that comes in. you can quadruple your, you know, registrations overnights and yeah, you'd be a fool not to take advantage of that.

    ↗Finding hidden growth opportunities in your product | Albert Cheng (Duolingo, Grammarly, Chess.com)youtube.com 16th of 26 in this recording

  9. Our readingThe value of an ambitious experiment target is not hitting it but the conversation about what would have to be true to hit it.

    Their wordsAnd a thousand experiments by itself, like if you just did that, but you didn't learn, you didn't make an impact, and that's kind of a waste of time, right? The whole point of setting a goal is that you can have conversations about what would need to be true to actually hit that goal.

    ↗Finding hidden growth opportunities in your product | Albert Cheng (Duolingo, Grammarly, Chess.com)youtube.com 20th of 26 in this recording

  11. Our readingThe experimentation system — a growth model and correct instrumentation — matters more than any individual experiment.

    Their wordsThe system matters just as much as any given experiment. Probably even more. Right. I think starting with a growth model so you have an understanding of how your company grows in the first place and which channels you're going to leverage is critical. You need to make sure that you are instrumenting your product in and out otherwise you're going to run experiments and have wonky results.

    ↗Finding hidden growth opportunities in your product | Albert Cheng (Duolingo, Grammarly, Chess.com)youtube.com 21st of 26 in this recording

  13. 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