How to find 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 experiments a 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
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Where to find Albert Cheng:
• X: x.com/albertc248
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/albertcheng1
• Chess.com: chess.com/member/Goniners
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Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: lennysnewsletter.com
• X: twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky
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Referenced:
• How Duolingo reignited user growth: lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-duolingo-reignited-…
• Inside ChatGPT: The fastest-growing product in history | Nick Turley (Head of ChatGPT at OpenAI): lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-chatgpt-nick-tur…
• Explore vs. Exploit: brianbalfour.com/quick-takes/explore-vs-exploit
• Grammarly: grammarly.com
• Reforge: reforge.com
• Chess.com: chess.com
• Everyone’s an engineer now: Inside v0’s mission to create a hundred million builders | Guillermo Rauch (founder & CEO of Vercel, creators of v0 and Next.js (next.js)): lennysnewsletter.com/p/everyones-an-engineer-n…
• Building Lovable: $10M ARR in 60 days with 15 people | Anton Osika (CEO and co-founder): lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-lovable-anton-…
• Figma: figma.com
• Cursor: cursor.com
• The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-mich…
• Claude Code: anthropic.com/claude-code
• GitHub Copilot: github.com/features/copilot
• Noam Lovinsky on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/noaml
• The happiness and pain of product management | Noam Lovinsky (Grammarly, Facebook, YouTube, Thumbtack): lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-happiness-and-pain-…
• Kyla Siedband on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kylasiedband
• The Duolingo handbook: blog.duolingo.com/handbook
• Lenny’s post on X about the Duolingo handbook: x.com/lennysan/status/1889008405584683091
• The rituals of great teams | Shishir Mehrotra of Coda, YouTube, Microsoft: lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rituals-of-great-te…
• Duolingo on TikTok: tiktok.com/@duolingo
• Kasparov vs. Deep Blue | The Match That Changed History: chess.com/article/view/deep-blue-kasparov-chess
• Magnus Carlsen: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Carlsen
• Elo rating system: chess.com/terms/elo-rating-chess
• Stockfish: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockfish_(chess)
• AlphaGo on Prime Video: primevideo.com/detail/AlphaGo/0KNQHKKDAOE8OCYK…
• Statsig: statsig.com
• The State of Product in 2026: Navigating Change, Challenge, and Opportunity: atlassian.com/blog/announcements/state-of-prod…
• Erik Allebest on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/erikallebest
• Daniel Rensch on X: x.com/danielrensch
• Chariot: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariot_(company)
• San Francisco 49ers: 49ers.com
• Breville Barista Express: breville.com/en-us/product/bes870
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Recommended books:
• Snuggle Puppy!: A Little Love Song: amazon.com/Snuggle-Puppy-Little-Boynton-Board/…
• Ogilvy on Advertising: amazon.com/Ogilvy-Advertising-David/dp/0394729…
• Dark Squares: How Chess Saved My Life: amazon.com/Dark-Squares-Chess-Saved-Life/dp/15…
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Production and marketing by penname.co. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

To hear more, visit lennysnewsletter.com?utm_medium=podcast&ut…