Nir EyalSpeaker on Behavioral Science, NYT Bestselling Author, Former Stanford Lecturer

Growth can be bought, but retention must be built #shorts

Name: Growth can be bought, but retention must be built #shorts
Uploaded: 2025-02-14T17:45:35+00:00
Duration: 39 s
Channel: Nir Eyal
Description: Short YouTube clip (Nir Eyal) arguing that while you can buy growth or trial usage via ads and paid acquisition, you cannot buy retention — retention…

14 Feb 2025 · 1 min

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0:39

Short YouTube clip (Nir Eyal) arguing that while you can buy growth or trial usage via ads and paid acquisition, you cannot buy retention — retention must be designed into the product. He warns that relying on purchased growth (VC-funded ad spend) creates a leaky-bucket effect once spending stops.

Chapters

You can buy growth, you can always buy trial use. You cannot buy retention. There's nobody you can give your money to. The way you can buy ads to try and get people to stick with your company. Right. That has to be designed into the product. It cannot be bought. And so if you don't think about that early, you're throwing good money after bad. And that's what happens with every VC hype cycle, is that VC start giving money away. And the founders think, well, if in order to grow, you know, I have to keep growing. Well, they start purchasing ads, essentially, to get people to use the product. But then once that spigot of money stops, they're out of luck. Right. It's a leaky bucket. And so you can't buy engagement. Engagement must be designed into the product.