Running a playbook for international expansion (Andy Schabelman & Ben Grynol)

With massive growth comes the ability for international expansion. But as Airbnb alum Andy Schabelman discovered, successful growth takes much more than translating material from one language to another. One of the first 30 employees at Airbnb, Andy led the company’s international expansion initiatives. He sat down with Levels’ Head of Growth, Ben Grynol, to discuss the nuances and complexities of scaling companies in new markets.

3:11 – The grassroots growth of Airbnb

Part of the allure of Airbnb in the early days was the appeal of the social contract.

The first thing that got me into Airbnb back in the day, and what the original team that kind of led to I think its massive growth was into was this idea of people coming together to share in that social contract. We were combating the idea that the world was no longer a place where people were interacting face to face and having to go through some of those discomforts. But it was those discomforts that also would lead to extreme highs in travel, and it was those extreme highs that then led to people speaking about us to their friends, to 50 of their friends, rather than two of their friends, if they had just had a decent experience or a good experience, or one that was aligned with hotel experience.

4:45 – Looking beyond transactional growth

As the boots-on-the-ground growth presence for Airbnb, Andy would put his social skills to work to hire the right people.

We opened up 12 offices in 11 countries in something like seven months. And that was like my skill. Because I would just sort of arrive in a place, and I’d go to a doner kebab spot in Berlin and I’d hear Spanish. I’m like, “Oh, we need to hire Spaniards in Berlin.” So I’d just go up to the group at the table and I’d be like, “Hey, we’re looking to hire. Would you come on board?” And then, all of a sudden you’d go down these rabbit holes and the world would kind of open up for you, and you’d meet the right person, you’d meet the regulatory person you need to meet. And all of a sudden, boom, we were up and running. And I just sort of like believed in that sort of synchronicity of just going and hustling and making it work. And then, at the end of the day, hiring people that could also speak the language of and transmit the language of Airbnb being this company that represented something greater than just something transactional.

10:08 – Tailing product to different cultures

One memorable experience Andy had was in the Indian market, where users were ironically thrown off by the site’s clean simplicity.

I have an experience when we entered into the Indian market for Airbnb, we were just like flabbergasted why the Indians were like – you’d even watch them use the screen and they were confused. And what it boiled down to after hours and hours of feedback, they were confused by the simplicity. Like the Indian websites at the time had all these like flashing lights and busyness. And it was the busyness and the flashing lights that allowed them to very quickly understand where they needed to go and what part of the screen was important for them and what wasn’t. Like the simplicity of it was confusing for them. And that was kind of interesting. But yeah, Airbnb was different because all users assume that you were going to be engaging in English for the most part because of the international aspect. At the outset, I mean, we did start doing some minimal translation, but it wasn’t like anything too deep. We didn’t force translations within messaging.

11:59 – Go beyond localization

At Fiverr, Andy was frustrated by a lack of outreach and product support.

You can’t just do localization, meaning if you’re going to do localization, you have to support it with a pretty large marketing effort to sort of make sure that you’re reaching out to people that are going to be able to use it in the same language and that you get the awareness out, and you get the landing pages and you do the SEO correctly and all that stuff. It’s not sufficient just to localize. And the attitude at Fiverr was like, if we build it, they will come kind of thing. And so, I just sort of saw – and the other ways in which they would do product development was often to launch things, but not support them. And then, whatever would stick, that’s what they would invest in. But that’s not actually what it needs to be like for a product that you believe in like translating the website. You actually need to invest in it to develop it. Not just sort of see if it works kind of thing.

15:23 – Two methods of international growth

It is possible to grow an international presence from your headquarters versus boots on the ground. It just depends on your company.

There’s always two different styles of that kind of market growth, which is like, let’s do full on boots on the ground with like a company-wide effort to do it because we recognize its importance. Or this like part and parcel kind of approach, which could be done from HQ. And sometimes I think it does work for companies, and it can work for companies if there’s a lot of scalability built into the business model.

18:14 – Different countries need a unique order of operations

Andy says that different countries have different priorities, and should therefore have growth and outreach done in a different order.

You’ll have different buckets of growth that you’ll go down and you’ll realize in the US work for you. And you probably maybe even have like an order of operations for those levers. And I bet what you can do at this point, as far as it pertains to growth outside of the US is sort of just like playbook it. I mean, as much as possible, like the order of operations and the buckets. And then, as you sort of like plan the next move, I suspect because it always happens, that some of the levers will change. But more importantly, the order of operations will change. I don’t know for a fact, but I would imagine that if Germans were hearing things from workout influencers first, that probably wouldn’t work for them. They probably need to hear from doctors first.

21:17 – Embrace a period of exploration

It can be hard to explore a new market, but there are ways to do so wisely. .

That’s scary sometimes for a company because it equals like that there will be a period of time and money expenditure of exploration. But there’s ways to do that in smart ways. I’ve always worked in situations where there’s a core strong business and a very established growth machine within that business. And then, you’re going back into the basics of the – basically, the inception story and then replicating that in the new my market. But then realizing along the way that actually this new market is an opportunity to rediscover organic growth in ways that the growth machine had kind of like forgotten or moved away from. And then, using the organic growth that we’re finding in this new market to then inform the core business of ways to do organic growth within the core business.

30:23 – Keep an open mind

The benefit of scaling to new markets is that you may even learn ways to revitalize your existing approach in the process

Sometimes approaching things from a little bit more of a greenfield mentality allows you to discover things that are as critical to the business as higher spend and average order value. And to be aware of almost like create a playbook or a book of plays for the assumptions that are made into to the core business. Because if one can approach things with a little bit more of an open mind, you might lead to more growth, higher order values, repeat customers. All the things that you do care about as like growth metrics or a lower churn. All of the things you might actually be able to discover something from the outset that like positions you even better for longer-term growth within that market. And again, will then trickle back into the core business growth thinking.

32:07 – Learn from user behavior

At both Fiverr and Airbnb, the companies were able to use customer inputs and behaviors to revise the operation for the better.

At Fiverr, and in Airbnb, we had search within the product so that we could actually see what people were organically typing in. And in Germany, we could see what people were desiring to use the site for and where we’d have lower volume of supply. So that we knew that we couldn’t match the needs of the market. But we had the inputs that were coming in from the people who were initially engaging with the site or with the marketplace. So that was really valuable too, to be able to incorporate on a product side or on an operation side, because there were operational ways to learn. But like incorporate in the structure of the product or in the organization of the expansion mechanism, really, ways to organically learn about your users and what their needs are. And then, have like a feedback loop built in so that you can learn.

Andy Schabelman (00:06):

A general lesson in all of these markets and particularly the ones that are most like the US, sometimes approaching things from a little bit more of a greenfield’s mentality allows you to discover things that are as critical to the business as higher spend and average order value. And to be aware of almost like create a playbook or a book of plays for the assumptions that are made into the core business. Because if one can approach things with a little bit more of an open mind, you might lead to more growth, higher order values, repeat customers. All of things that you do care about as like growth metrics or a lower churn. All of the things you might actually be able to discover something from the outset that like positions you even better for longer-term growth within that market. And again, will then trickle back into the core business growth thinking.

Ben Grynol (01:04):

Here at Levels, we’re building tech that helps people to understand their metabolic health. And this is your front row seat to everything we do. This is A Whole New Level.

Ben Grynol (01:27):

Hey listeners, Ben Grynol here. Part of the early startup team at Levels that lead growth with the team. And had a chance to sit down with Andy Schabelman, one of the earliest investors in Levels who leads the fund [inaudible 00:01:39]. Real tongue twister to say.

Ben Grynol (01:42):

Anyway, Andy’s had a storied career. He’s worked with Google, Airbnb, and even Fiverr. And he spent a lot of time in international expansion. And so earlier this summer, we ended up having a jam session where we sat down and we were riffing on, what does international expansion look like when we’re ready to take it on with Levels? What is the way we’ll approach it? And the takeaway was have a book of plays. Don’t have a playbook, have a book of plays.

Ben Grynol (02:13):

Now, this might sound semantic, but there’s a lot of nuance in it. And it’s something that has resonated with our team, has been woven into the conversations as we’ve started to think about what does it look like post-launch. Once we get to launch in the US, what does it look like if we start to think about international expansion? And the real insight was you can’t approach every country in the same way.

Ben Grynol (02:36):

Now, maybe this sounds naive to say, but because of different demographics, because of different geographic considerations, because of different cultural values, all countries need to be treated and approached in a very different way. There might be some overlap in the Venn diagram of the approach, but no two countries are going to be the exact same. So as a really meaningful conversation, and we didn’t plan on releasing this as a podcast, but here it is. Here’s Andy.

Andy Schabelman (03:07):

The first thing that got me into Airbnb back in the day, and what the original team that kind of led to I think its massive growth was into was this idea of people coming together to share in that social contract. We were combating the idea that the world was no longer a place where people were interacting face to face and having to go through some of those discomforts. But it was those discomforts that also would lead to extreme highs in travel through the… And it was those extreme highs that then led to people speaking about us to their friends, to 50 of their friends, rather than two of their friends, if they had just had a decent experience or a good experience, or one that was aligned with hotel experience.

Ben Grynol (03:54):

Yeah. And that becomes that somewhat flywheel effect where it’s like your growth becomes word of mouth. Did you work with Gustaf on a lot of the growth stuff?

Andy Schabelman (04:07):

I wouldn’t say that I worked a lot with Gustaf but, I mean, I obviously knew who he was. But I was more on international side of things. So I would go and open up physical markets. And I definitely worked with an internal product team to productize the internal tools that our sales and warm sales teams were using in these local markets. But what I was really good at was arriving in a place hiring the team, figuring out what the legal and regulatory issues were, and getting an office up and running in something crazy like three weeks. So…

Ben Grynol (04:44):

Nice.

Andy Schabelman (04:45):

… we opened up 12 offices in 11 countries in something like seven months.

Ben Grynol (04:50):

Nice.

Andy Schabelman (04:53):

And that was like my skill. Because I would just sort of arrive in a place, and I’d go to a doner kebab spot in Berlin and I’d hear Spanish. I’m like, “Oh, we need to hire Spaniards in Berlin.” So I’d just go up to the group at the table and I’d be like, “Hey, we’re looking to hire at [inaudible 00:05:12]. Would you come on board?” And then, all of a sudden you’d go down these rabbit holes and the world would kind of open up for you, and you’d meet the right person, you’d meet the regulatory person you need to meet. And all of a sudden, boom, we were up and running. And I just sort of like believed in that sort of synchronicity of just going and hustling and making it work. And then, at the end of the day, hiring people that could also speak the language of and transmit the language of Airbnb being this company that represented something greater than just something transactional.

Andy Schabelman (05:44):

And so, for example, just talking to hosts in a way that was going to let them know, you’re going to make money, but that’s a byproduct of expressing your creativity in your place, the love of your home, going above and beyond. Those kinds of things were much more important than the transactional. And in fact there were markets like Miami’s that never took off because they were always from the outset, so focused on transactional. We went after property managers early on in Miami and the market never took off still this day. And we learned early on, there was a right mix of professional, casual, and semi-professionals in order to be able to build a market with that flywheel effect.

Ben Grynol (06:30):

Nice. When you were traveling internationally, were you relaying back to the product team everything for localization? Like, hey, the product, even if we want to maintain a universal code base with a product that we just localize from a language perspective and maintain the brand, were you relaying back certain things like, “Hey, we have to localize the product this way because the needs are so different”?

Andy Schabelman (06:57):

Yeah. I mean, I would argue that doing that before doing localization is more important because you learn a lot more about what the… In the case of Airbnb or in Fiverr, the real trust barriers were, so people joining you or using you. So, for example, at Fiverr, when I decided to enter the German market, were curious why people were falling out even during the login screen. And yeah, just by meeting people on the ground and asking questions, you realized, “Oh, it turns out Germans are really skeptical of Facebook and Google as a company.” And so, when you put them as your login mechanism, they’ll drop off.

Ben Grynol (07:44):

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andy Schabelman (07:47):

They needed to hear and see GDPR compliance, needed to have like the special page that talked about who your general manager was and the location of the office called the impressum. Germans needed deadlines more so than other markets. They didn’t like the shift between pricing when you would… They would shift between pricing when they would look at [inaudible 00:08:09] gig to when they would checkout. And invoicing didn’t work for them. These are things that we learned by working with the existing group in Berlin that spoke English.

Ben Grynol (08:22):

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andy Schabelman (08:23):

And it was more important to solve for them first than to go and localize, and then adding another layer of variables to solve for.

Ben Grynol (08:34):

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, that’s interesting that you bring that up. The last company that I was a part of, we got acquired by a company out of the UK. Ended up a couple years later having a merger with a company based out of the Netherlands. So we were acquired by a publicly traded company on the UK exchange. Merged with a company that was publicly traded based out of the Netherlands. And the way that their… Even though you still think it’s like Europe. Like both are in Europe.

Andy Schabelman (09:04):

Yeah.

Ben Grynol (09:04):

The way that as you got further east in Europe, that you would present information to consumers was completely different. So you would go to this company’s homepage. I mean, massive, massive company. And it was basically like information about the company. Like lots of text and pictures that talk exactly what you’re saying, where it’s like talking about like the managing director or [inaudible 00:09:30] like…

Andy Schabelman (09:30):

Yeah.

Ben Grynol (09:30):

… CEO of that country’s involvement in care for the business and all this stuff. Whereas in North America, it’s so transactional that you’re like literally get me like the CTA. Like I want to jump on that page and I want to be like, book Airbnb, book Fiverr.

Andy Schabelman (09:45):

Yeah.

Ben Grynol (09:46):

You want to avoid the pleasantries. But…

Andy Schabelman (09:48):

Now [crosstalk 00:09:49].

Ben Grynol (09:48):

… it’s the complete opposite where it doesn’t… It just didn’t work like that. So it was such a weird juxtaposition between switching your mind and being like, “This doesn’t look like it works.” But having to understand like, “Oh, this is the only way to make it work in these countries.” It’s really interesting.

Andy Schabelman (10:06):

Yeah, totally. I have an experience when we entered into the Indian market for Airbnb, we were just like flabbergasted why the Indians were like… You’d even watch them use the screen and they were confused. And what it boiled down to after hours and hours of feedback, they were confused by the simplicity. Like the Indian websites at the time had all these like flashing lights and busyness. And it was the busyness and the flashing lights that allowed them to very quickly understand where they needed to go and what part of the screen was important for them and what wasn’t.

Ben Grynol (10:42):

Interesting.

Andy Schabelman (10:44):

They didn’t… Like the simplicity of it was confusing for them. And that was kind of interesting. But yeah, Airbnb was different because all users assume that you were going to be engaging in English for the most part because of the international aspect. At the outset, I mean, we did start doing some minimal translation, but it wasn’t like anything too deep. We didn’t force translations within messaging at the time, and that was sufficient. I mean, Fiverr, same for now.

Ben Grynol (11:23):

Yeah. Does Fiverr have a localized product based on language? Or is it just, if you land on the Fiverr.com website and you search Spanish and English, you might find people that are like Spanish [crosstalk 00:11:38]?

Andy Schabelman (11:38):

No.

Ben Grynol (11:38):

Or do you localize it?

Andy Schabelman (11:42):

When I left, they were starting to localize. That was actually kind of why I left because they took the international project to be about translation rather than these localized teams. And that’s a project management effort. And also you can’t just do localization, meaning if you’re going to do localization, you have to support it with a pretty large marketing effort to sort of make sure that you’re reaching out to people that are going to be able to use it in the same language and that you get the awareness out, and you get the landing pages and you do the SEO correctly and all that stuff. It’s not sufficient just to localize. And the attitude at Fiverr was like… It was like, if we build it, they will come kind of thing.

Ben Grynol (12:26):

Oh, interesting.

Andy Schabelman (12:29):

And so, I just sort of saw… And the other ways in which they would do product development was often to launch things, but not support them. And then, whatever would stick, that’s what they would invest in. But that’s not actually what it needs to be like for a product that you believe in like translating the website. You actually need to invest in it to develop it. Not just sort of see if it works kind of thing. You know?

Ben Grynol (12:53):

Yeah.

Andy Schabelman (12:53):

Use that as the metric.

Ben Grynol (12:54):

Yeah, the localization for campaigns is so key. And it’s one of the… It became a bit of a debate like from past experience where the UK company that acquired us was like, “Hey, we’re going to…” We were one of 18 subsidiaries. All the same business line. It was on demand [crosstalk 00:13:18].

Andy Schabelman (13:19):

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ben Grynol (13:21):

We’re going to get economies of scale by blanket strategy, and the whole world, all 18 of you are getting the same campaign. And all we’re going to do is rerecord the VO. Because assume it was like, let’s just make it up. It was like there was some campaign where it was like B-roll video and you could just change out the VO, done deal like scrappiest, easiest way to localize a campaign.

Andy Schabelman (13:44):

Uh-huh (affirmative).

Ben Grynol (13:47):

And we are like, “Hey, that’s just not the way it works. Like you can’t… It’s not going to be effective for a number of reasons. You need to target people base…” Because there were two sides. Sorry, let me rewind. There’s like localizing the product from a translation standpoint. We had unified code base where it was like try to keep the product relatively the same. So when you’re pushing updates to 18… Because we ran the tech for all the subsidiaries. Push it out. All the subsidiaries that had the same business model. Push it out. Done deal. Who cares about… Like translations the only thing you worry about. Or like on the marketing side of things, you got to nail the campaign. Otherwise, you’re just dumping money out and they’re like, “No, no, this is going to work.”

Andy Schabelman (14:26):

Right.

Ben Grynol (14:27):

When we went through the merger, then it was like, “Oh yeah, let’s go back to the idea of making sure that in Spain they feel like it is a Spanish campaign. Totally different than this.” There’s no unified campaign base that works for the world.

Andy Schabelman (14:42):

Yeah.

Ben Grynol (14:42):

It’s funny to hear that everything that you’re saying because it’s exactly true, you can’t just push this campaign globally and be like, “Oh, this is going to work,” and expect translation’s the answer.

Andy Schabelman (14:54):

Right. I mean, and that’s kind of… That’s the argument that I’ve made in the past when there have been companies that have been like, “Hey, we want to hire you for internationalization.” And I’m like, “Okay, well, my style is this very localized boots on the ground thing. And so, I don’t add a whole lot of value if you’re trying to do like this language localization. And I can tell you which partners I would recommend to use, but you don’t need me for that.”

Ben Grynol (15:21):

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andy Schabelman (15:22):

And it’s always like the interesting… There’s always two different styles of that kind of market growth, which is like, let’s do full on boots on the ground with like a companywide effort to do it because we recognize its importance. Or this like part and parcel kind of approach, which could be done from HQ. And sometimes I think it does work for companies, and it can work for companies if there’s a lot of scalability built into the business model. But I’m curious, what you’re thinking about with Levels specifically, where are you in that? Is it about pushing to different markets internationally? Is it about just building this base that’s in the US? Or how are you thinking about it?

Ben Grynol (16:05):

Oh, so all of the above. First, we have to get to launch in the US.

Andy Schabelman (16:10):

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ben Grynol (16:12):

JM, so Josh Moyer, who’s on that email thread that [inaudible 00:16:17] us all into. He is head of global operations, so he’s overseeing international expansion when we go down the path. Right now, there’s a little bit of exploration as far as international markets, but nothing as far as day-to-day execution. Like we’re not tactically trying to launch Australia at the same time as US. We’re like, “Let’s get to launch in the US first because we have to.”

Ben Grynol (16:44):

But there’s still effort going on in… And a lot of it has to do with regulation. The regulation for CGMs in Canada is totally different than the US, where you’re just, what, over the counter versus prescription. Okay, this change [inaudible 00:16:59] thing, so. And then, lump in one other side of things, the infrastructure side which is like fulfillment to infrastructure, where because of regulation in the US, we work with Truepill. Cool. They take care of all the doctor consults. They take care of the actual distribution of the CGMs. We don’t worry about it.

Ben Grynol (17:19):

In Canada, they don’t have… Truepill, doesn’t have a network. You also don’t need Truepill. You just need a Cloud Pharmacy. So it’s like all of these things and then how does our product experience change. It’s not drastic because it just becomes like a part of the flow. But it’s still… There are considerations. So it’s not like Walmart where they’re like, “Okay, we know this 20,000 square foot store. Here’s the exact spec. We just need the land. Like, we’ll go set it up. Merchandise the exact [inaudible 00:17:50].” It’s a lot. There are more considerations. So we’re going down the path, but we got to get to launch in the US first.

Andy Schabelman (18:00):

I suspect…

Ben Grynol (18:01):

Oh, go ahead.

Andy Schabelman (18:01):

… by the way that… I suspect that the levers that you’re pulling now for growth, like say for example, you mentioned podcast. And I’m sure there’s an online presence, and whatever it is. You’ll have different buckets of growth that you’ll go down and you’ll realize in the US work for you. And you probably maybe even have like an order of operations for those levers.

Andy Schabelman (18:27):

And I bet what you can do at this point, as far as it pertains to growth outside of the US is sort of just like playbook it. I mean, as much as possible, like the order of operations and the buckets. And then, as you sort of like plan the next move, then you’ll… I suspect because it always happens that the… Some of the levers will change, but more importantly, the order of operations will change.

Ben Grynol (18:52):

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andy Schabelman (18:53):

Like what you do first to kind of like… I don’t know for a fact, but I would imagine that if Germans were hearing things from workout influencers first, that probably wouldn’t work for them. They probably need to hear from doctors first.

Ben Grynol (19:11):

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, yeah.

Andy Schabelman (19:12):

That’s just like a… And then, once doctors come in, then you need workout people. Just like…

Ben Grynol (19:18):

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andy Schabelman (19:18):

Just thinking that like the order of ops in each culture might be different, but you’ll probably use some of the same levers. So keeping in mind what levers and the buckets of levers so that then you can kind of move those pieces of around for when you’re going into a new market.

Ben Grynol (19:32):

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Interesting. It’s good to jam on this because this is the nature of moving fast. We don’t spend tons of time jamming on this stuff. It’s more like, we’ll think about it, but we’ll keep semi-punting it. So having almost like a working session like this, where you’re like, “Oh yes, two people can put their minds together and have a conversation about it.” It’s like, you’re very right that we don’t know what we don’t know in the sense of like, do Germans, on average, listen to podcasts and do they resonate with them? Because in the US, we know that’s like a major channel for, not just Levels, but tons of consumer facing brands. You have 45 minutes of attention, hour of attention.

Andy Schabelman (20:18):

Right.

Ben Grynol (20:18):

You trust the host. But to your point, in Germany, it might be like, “Nope, I need an…” And I’m making this up. I need inside sales from somebody who calls me and says, “Hi, this is Dr. Andy. I’m calling you to let you know about Levels,” because it gives them the trust. We don’t know that. But it’s a good point because it’s so easy to forget that you can’t just run a playbook. We know that you can’t run a playbook, but internationally you have to think about, “Oh yeah, it’s not just campaign. It’s the actual playbook.”

Andy Schabelman (20:51):

Yeah. I mean, I often push back with [inaudible 00:20:56] whenever I’ve worked for people that are like, “Let’s come up… Our goal is to come up with a playbook.” And I’m like, “Yeah, let’s come up with like a book with a lot of plays.”

Ben Grynol (21:07):

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Andy Schabelman (21:09):

“And then, determine the ones that we need to use. But it’s not going to look exactly the same as the US.” And that’s scary sometimes for a company because it equals like that there will be a period of time and money expenditure of exploration. But there’s ways to do that in smart ways. But that was definitely… I’ve always worked in situations where there’s a core strong business and a very established growth machine within that business. And then, you’re going back into the basics of the… Basically, the inception story and then replicating that in the new my market.

Andy Schabelman (21:48):

But then realizing along the way that actually this new market is an opportunity to rediscover organic growth in ways that the growth machine had kind of like forgotten or moved away from. And then, using the organic growth that we’re finding in this new market to then inform the core business of ways to do organic growth within the core business. So that’s another opportunity that happens when one does international growth, which is that it can often reinform and reinvigorate the core business to be more sensitive towards organic growth when it’s already kind of gone down it’s established growth paths.

Ben Grynol (22:27):

Yeah. Man, it’s such good point. So with the company that I was with, we’re Canadian based company. We launched… I’ve been part of two companies that, where we’ve done Quebec launches. And you have to treat Quebec like a different country, just because [crosstalk 00:22:45]. Not only is it French speaking, but different regulation. Like there’s…

Andy Schabelman (22:50):

Yeah.

Ben Grynol (22:51):

… advertising regulation, as far as… It’s different than other countries where you can just go language and that’s fine.

Andy Schabelman (22:58):

Yeah.

Ben Grynol (22:59):

In Quebec, you have to treat it where there’s both French and English, but they have to be a different percentage.

Andy Schabelman (23:06):

Yeah, totally.

Ben Grynol (23:09):

It’s crazy. Like the last one that we did when we launched, we treated it because we had become a national brand at that point and had strong brand recognition. Like working with NHL and things where you assume like everyone knows you’re in one country. And it was a bit naive almost on our part because we went middle of the funnel. And we’re just like, “Oh, consideration.” Even though we are called… We had a different brand name, but same brand colors treatment, just localized to French. And we were trying to run like middle of the funnel campaign and it was like, “Oh no, we got to go back to square one and reeducate with the foundational story of who we are, what we do,” because people actually, A, don’t have an idea and, B, don’t care.

Ben Grynol (23:51):

And then, once we got to the consideration and conversion part of the funnel, like call it. Let’s say, it took six or eight months to [inaudible 00:23:57]. It was a pretty quick ramp up just because there was some national trust. We were doing spots nationally with Jon Hamm. But in Quebec, what resonates with them is like radio hosts and like reality TV stars. It’s literally insane. So it wouldn’t matter if Hamm was talking in French. They didn’t want Hamm because Hamm is not one of them.

Ben Grynol (24:24):

It’s like so bonkers. But then that gets back to your point of like knowing the market and then knowing what the conversion mechanism is. So it’s like you have a book with lots of plays, but it’s just not like here’s our playbook. And it’s a good lesson to learn because you’re like… You could call it a mistake or a learning opportunity. But it’s like you know that that’s not going to be done again. Like we’re not… Now with Levels, it’s like, we’re not going to make a mistake like that. That would be just naive. I mean, we will. We’re going to screw up [crosstalk 00:24:57].

Andy Schabelman (24:56):

Of course.

Ben Grynol (24:57):

But…

Andy Schabelman (24:58):

[crosstalk 00:24:58].

Ben Grynol (24:58):

… we know not to do it. You know?

Andy Schabelman (24:59):

Yeah. I would argue like… Well, and maybe it’s different for something that has more logistics involved. But in some of the software, [inaudible 00:25:09] like marketplaces that I was used to building, some of the hardest countries to launch were actually the UK and Canada. Partly because I think it was harder to convince the executive teams that the approach needed to kind of go back to square one because the assumption is much like it’s already baked into the system that Canada and the UK are going to operate like the US.

Ben Grynol (25:37):

Yeah, yeah.

Andy Schabelman (25:39):

And it’s also harder to pay attention to the signals because you already have a little bit of confirmation bias because you’re working within the same sort of like cultural group.

Ben Grynol (25:48):

Totally. Yeah, yeah.

Andy Schabelman (25:50):

Grouping. So it makes you less likely to be aware of the things that are going to lead to people just absolutely loving you, which is like actually as non-scientific as that is, that was always the thing that I would hire for. I would hire for people that were attuned to being able to listen to what was something that was going to allow someone to use your product and be blown away on such a deep level. And that was like hiring for people that had that sensitivity to be able to tune out just like…

Andy Schabelman (26:28):

Yeah, we want people to like the product. But likability and transactional kind of considerations were good, but not as good as say for example, like the daughter of someone who has diabetes being able to help her father out in some capacity. And like the joy that it would bring her to have her be able to have a solution to help her father. That was much more powerful sometimes than say like… I’m trying to think of like a 20-year-old who’s a high performance athlete who’s like trying to…

Andy Schabelman (27:06):

Well, I mean, that’s not necessarily the case. But I don’t know the specifics of the Levels world. But sometimes like pinpointing the thing that would lead to the most emotionality in product usage was a great trail to follow in terms of growth. And then, kind of like deviate from there and obviously taking brand considerations in that process. But yeah, that was something I was always attuned to, both for myself and in hiring. And to also not assume too much into a market. So, those kind of like personalities that could kind of like deal with that more art form piece of growth, rather than the scientific piece, that was always really important for me.

Ben Grynol (27:49):

When you think about markets like Australia, UK, Canada, US, anything that is sort of your flag, your tent pole, where you’re like… If there is one thing that you’re going to anchor on where…

Andy Schabelman (28:06):

Yeah.

Ben Grynol (28:06):

… Canada is so different than the US with this.

Andy Schabelman (28:09):

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ben Grynol (28:10):

UK was so different. And this is just based on experience, Airbnb, Fiverr.

Andy Schabelman (28:14):

Yeah.

Ben Grynol (28:15):

Anything that you saw where you thought within those markets, when you went there, where you were like, “Holy shit, Australians just don’t do [inaudible 00:28:26] the same as the US.” Or was it granted like… Here’s a challenge with comparing Fiverr to Airbnb, is network without geographic constraints versus network with are totally different.

Andy Schabelman (28:39):

Yeah.

Ben Grynol (28:39):

But from the consumer… It’s more from the… Not from the operational standpoint, more from the consumer standpoint.

Andy Schabelman (28:46):

I’m kind of going to answer your question, which to say that the… Like for example, we were so accustomed at Fiverr for showing the same search results. We were so accustomed to thinking that the user was going to arrive and have the same set of expectations for spend or for anything, but spend in particular, that we didn’t shift the algorithm. We didn’t change the product to meet the potential expectations of the customer.

Andy Schabelman (29:20):

And our marketplace reset the expectations for what someone was willing to actually spend in a given market. And we would’ve been better served approaching that with a little bit more of an open mind in those markets, because we actually probably would’ve been able to lead to a higher spend. But it was like the UK… Yeah, Fiverr’s name, Fiverr reminds someone in the UK of like a five pound note.

Ben Grynol (29:47):

Oh yeah.

Andy Schabelman (29:47):

And it’s really easy to say that that’s the reason why Brits aren’t spending as much on your platform. But the thing that would remind Brits of the five pound note was not even the name, it was the fact that they’d arrive on the site and see all these lower cost, lower prices on the marketplace. And the willingness of a Brit to spend more was actually higher than what they showed when they were first arriving on our site. But we were the ones that were resetting those expectations.

Andy Schabelman (30:14):

And so that’s just a general lesson in all of these markets, and particularly the ones that are most like the US, which is that sometimes approaching things from a little bit more of a greenfield’s mentality allows you to discover things that are as critical to the business as higher spend and average order value. And to be aware of almost like create a playbook or a book of plays for the assumptions that are made into to the core business.

Andy Schabelman (30:42):

Because if one can approach things with a little bit more of an open mind, you might lead to more growth, higher order values, repeat customers. All the things that you do care about as like growth metrics or a lower churn. All of the things you might actually be able to discover something from the outset that like positions you even better for longer-term growth within that market. And again, will then trickle back into the core business growth thinking.

Ben Grynol (31:10):

Mm-hmm (affirmative). I mean, the example of Facebook login in Germany right there is such a good insight because it’s so easy to just go down a rabbit hole of like, “Well, maybe Germany’s just not a good market for us.” When really it’s like you have to go so far upstream to be like, “Oh, it’s actually… It’s an amazing market. It’s just a silly little button at the beginning of the flow. That’s all it is. It’s just the heuristic that this market has, in general, towards this other company that has nothing to do with us. Let’s just like take that out of the flow.” And then, all of a sudden, you see… So it’s like… I think that’s such a good lesson. And a good takeaway is always thinking so far upstream about these micro elements as they can pertain to growth product engagement, community, all of these things.

Andy Schabelman (32:03):

And I think if you have a product that allows for that discovery, like for example, at Fiverr, and in Airbnb, we had search within the product so that we could actually see what people were organically typing in. And in Germany, we could see what people were desiring to use the site for and where we’d have lower volume of supply. So that we knew that we couldn’t match the needs of the market. But we had the inputs that were coming in from the people who were initially engaging with the site or with the marketplace.

Ben Grynol (32:35):

Mm-hmm (affirmative). Interesting.

Andy Schabelman (32:36):

So that was really valuable too, to be able to incorporate on a product side or on an operation side, because there were operational ways to learn. But like incorporate in the structure of the product or in the organization of the expansion mechanism, really, ways to organically learn about your users and what their needs are. And then, have like a feedback loop built in so that you can learn.

Ben Grynol (33:07):

That’s neat. Yeah, having those insights drive supply side aggregation once you’re already established is very cool because it’s counterintuitive to marketplaces where it’s like aggregate supply, solve problem for demand and supply side. But using the insight of like, “Oh, we’ll get minimum viable supply,” then demand side locally is going to drive all these insights for like back to book with plays, not playbook, because…

Andy Schabelman (33:37):

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ben Grynol (33:38):

… the heuristic of like, “Oh, our playbook is first, we aggregate…” Let’s use Fiverr. First, we aggregate generalists. Then, we aggregate people who specialize in voiceover. And what you find from the demand side is you’re like, “Man, nobody cares about voiceover in Germany,” or everybody does. It’s like [crosstalk 00:33:57] you can’t just run that because then you’ve the wrong supply for the demand side. You’re not going to hit the growth metrics because you’re not serving them up the right product. And then, everybody, if they jump too far forward in extrapolating an answer, they’re like, “Oh, Germany is not a good market for us.” And it’s back to like, “No, no. They just don’t like voiceover.”

Andy Schabelman (34:20):

Totally.

Ben Grynol (34:20):

Yeah. No, that is…

Andy Schabelman (34:21):

Totally.

Ben Grynol (34:22):

… super interesting, super interesting.

Ben Grynol (34:32):

When jam is starting to run point on, let’s say it’s Canada, he’s looking at it from the op standpoint, like the infrastructure. And then, there’ll be the whole growth book with plays that we decide to run. I think having a jam session, I’m sure there’s a ton that jam would… It would probably be beneficial to jam with him separately on, “Hey, this is what I saw from the op side.” And then, when it comes back to growth, when we get to it, it’s very, very helpful to have these conversations where you can just sort of like jam it out. So I’d appreciate your time.

Andy Schabelman (35:06):

Whenever you want. I’m here for you.

Ben Grynol (35:08):

Sweet.