Finding hidden growth opportunities in your product | Albert Cheng (Duolingo, Grammarly, Chess.com)

Albert Cheng has led growth at three of the world’s most successful consumer subscription companies: Duolingo, Grammarly, and Chess.com. A former Google product manager (and serious pianist!), Albert developed a unique approach to finding and scaling growth opportunities through rapid experimentation and deep user psychology. His teams run 1,000/year, discovering counterintuitive insights that have driven tens of millions in revenue. *What you’ll learn:* 1. How to use the explore–exploit framework to find new growth opportunities 2. How showing premium features to free users doubled Grammarly’s upgrades to paid plans 3. What good retention looks like for a consumer subscription app 4. Why resurrected users drive 80% of mature product growth 5. Why “reverse trials” work better than time-based trials 6. The three pillars of successful gamification: core loop, metagame, and profile *Brought to you by:* Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security: https://vanta.com/lenny Jira Product Discovery—Confidence to build the right thing: https://atlassian.com/lenny Miro—A collaborative visual platform where your best work comes to life: https://miro.com/lenny *Transcript:* https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-find-hidden-growth-opportunities-albert-cheng *My biggest takeaways (for paid newsletter subscribers):* https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/i/174369960/my-biggest-takeaways-from-this-conversation *Where to find Albert Cheng:* • X: https://x.com/albertc248 • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertcheng1/ • Chess.com: https://www.chess.com/member/Goniners *Where to find Lenny:* • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ *In this episode, we cover:* (00:00) Introduction to Albert Cheng (04:25) From classical pianist to growth leader (09:37) The explore and exploit framework for growth (15:19) How to know when to explore vs. exploit (16:34) Using AI to accelerate growth experimentation (20:42) Grammarly’s biggest monetization win (24:36) Freemium vs. trial models for subscription products (28:03) What retention rates you need for subscription success (32:06) The importance of resurrected users (34:35) Differences between Duolingo, Grammarly, and Chess.com (45:53) How AI is changing Chess.com (51:19) How AI is changing the growth role (53:47) Tips for running successful experiments at scale (57:22) How to shift company culture toward experimentation (1:01:19) Key lessons from running experiments at scale (01:04:41) The three pillars of successful gamification (1:07:50) The most counterintuitive lesson about building teams (01:10:38) Deciding what…