About the Episode

Andres Glusman is the Cofounder and CEO of DoWhatWorks. Prior to DoWhatWorks he led product and growth at Meetup where he was a pioneer in the lean startup movement. He has been running tests online since the late 1990s and is passionate about human behavior. We spoke about the power of split testing, when you can do it, and when you can't.

Episode highlights:

1. Split tests are a great way to work out how to grow

Otherwise known as A/B tests, split testing involves systematically varying a user experience for different groups of users & then comparing the end result to see how those changes impacted behaviour for better (or worse).

2. Four out of five split tests fail to move the needle

These are terrible odds, but the good news is that terrible odds aren't hard to make a little better. It's important to get as much signal from as many sources as possible upfront so you have the best chance of success.

3. These signals can come from anywhere

Split-testing is a great way to learn, but it's not the only way to learn. Make sure you use a mixture of experiments, surveys, qualitative inputs, feedback and any other data source you can get your hands on. It's all signal.

4. There's only so much juice you can squeeze from a lemon

You need to be careful that you're going overboard. It's possible to test too much & get caught in eternal loops. It comes down to fear of mistakes but, unless you're putting medicine in someone, you can make a mistake.

5. Yes, B2B people can do split-tests too

You don't have to have a mass-market B2C app to get good tests going. There's scope to experiment in B2B but you need to do your homework, get as much data as you can upfront & make sure you put your chips on the right part of the table.

Contact Andres

You can catch up with Andres on LinkedIn.

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