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Nilan Peiris (CPO of Wise)24 September 2023

How to drive word of mouth

7Frameworks
15Insights

Frameworks in this episode

Innovation4 steps

Blow Their Socks Off: The 10x Word-of-Mouth Bar

To earn recommendation, give users an experience they didn't know was previously possible

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Strategy4 steps

Conviction-Led Product Management

You can't split-test your way to love — build conviction on what matters, then make one big change

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Finance4 steps

Cost-Allocation Pricing to Fuel Word-of-Mouth

Allocate every real cost to the customer who caused it, raise heavy users, cut everyone else's price

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Entrepreneurship4 steps

Do the Unscalable to Get Customers to Lobby For You

Deliver a painful manual experience so good that customers complain to the regulator, not to you

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Leadership4 steps

Mission Authenticity as an Emotional Referral Engine

An authentic mission that customers genuinely believe becomes a word-of-mouth channel money can't buy

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Marketing4 steps

Product Marketing: Closing the Perception Delta

Make users perceive the value you actually delivered — close the gap between done and perceived

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Marketing4 steps

The NPS Doubling Curve for Viral Growth

Optimize NPS instead of conversion, because each promoter tier doubles how many people they tell

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Insights & moments

The myth-busts, hot takes, explainers, and tools worth keeping.

Hot Take· 3

Hot Take19:30

To Get Word of Mouth, Blow Their Socks Off

Most teams stop building when a product works; some push a bit further on conversion rate for a small growth bump. Nilan argues real word of mouth requires giving users an experience they didn't know was previously possible, doing something no one has ever done before, which for Wise meant instant transfers and dropping the price from 6% to 0.35%.

  • Most founders stop when the product merely works
  • Recommendation requires an experience users didn't know was possible
  • For Wise: instant money movement and price from 6% down to 0.35%
  • These come from solving hard systemic infrastructure problems, over years

“you have to give them an experience they didn't know was previously possible and when you're in that place of doing something that no one…”

Nilan Peiris · 20:00
#word-of-mouth#product#ambition#growth
Hot Take35:30

Great Companies Keep One List, Not Two

Nilan observes that most businesses keep two lists: things to do for customers and things to do to make money, and they always do the money items but only some customer items. Wise (and Airbnb) instead keep a single list of things that make customers happy, prioritized by impact, and the hard high-impact items drive both growth and shareholder value.

  • Most companies keep a customer list and a make-money list, and money always wins
  • Wise keeps one list: things that make customers happy
  • It's prioritized by impact on the really hard things
  • The hard customer wins also drive growth and shareholder value

“we just had one list which is this list of things that you need to do to make customers happy”

Nilan Peiris · 36:00
#prioritization#customer-focus#strategy#product
Hot Take38:30

You Can't Split-Test Your Way to Love

Wise builds conviction about what matters (price, speed, ease of use) rather than throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks. Nilan argues experiment-led product management is expensive in engineering and, backed by a data 'net' to avoid hubris, conviction enables far bigger changes than incremental testing ever could.

  • Conviction-led beats experiment-led when engineering is expensive
  • A data 'net' keeps conviction from turning into hubris
  • Conviction enables much bigger changes than incremental A/B tests
  • It forces clarity on the real problem and how to solve it well

“you can't split test your way to love right”

Nilan Peiris · 38:30
#experimentation#product-management#conviction#strategy

Explainer· 5

Explainer06:00

How Wise Measures Word of Mouth: Just Ask Customers

Wise knows 70% of growth is word of mouth because they simply ask customers, overlaying an attribution model on top of referral and cookie data. The question is stitched directly into the product flow rather than bolted on, an approach Nilan notes Airbnb also used with a simple interstitial pop-up.

  • An attribution model overlays referral, cookie, and direct-traffic data
  • They sample and survey customers to size the word-of-mouth number
  • The 'how did you hear about us' question is integrated into the product flow
  • Airbnb used the same tactic: a little interstitial pop-up on the site

“we ask customers is the short answer”

Nilan Peiris · 06:30

“it's just like just ask people they'll tell you how they heard of it”

Lenny · 07:30
#word-of-mouth#attribution#measurement#growth
Explainer10:30

Every NPS Point Higher Doubles How Many People Users Tell

When Wise overlaid referral data onto NPS scores, they found the number of people a customer tells doubles as you move from sixes/sevens to eights, doubles again to nines, and doubles again to tens. Moving NPS increases the viral coefficient of the whole customer base, so unlike a one-off conversion-rate bump the ROI compounds.

  • Detractors barely refer; advocacy climbs steeply at the top of the scale
  • Each step up the NPS scale roughly doubles the number of people told
  • Moving conversion rate is a one-off hit; moving NPS raises the viral coefficient
  • This made NPS the metric to optimize the whole business around

“when you've got people from sixes to this seven and eight group they doubled the number of people they told eight to nine they doubled…”

Nilan Peiris · 11:00

“if you move the MPS like from 30 to 50 you increase the viral coefficient of your customer base”

Nilan Peiris · 12:00
#nps#word-of-mouth#viral-coefficient#metrics
Explainer22:30

Work Backwards From the Theoretical Ideal, Not Forward From Today

Plugging in someone else's infrastructure gets a few users but never hockey-stick growth, because it doesn't fundamentally change the problem. Instead, Wise asks the theoretical minimum cost and maximum speed possible, then works backwards over years to get there, an approach Nilan links to Airbnb's practice of designing the ideal experience first.

  • Shortcuts (plugging in existing infra) yield users but no exponential growth
  • Ask the theoretical minimum cost and maximum speed, not incremental gains
  • Incremental improvement never reaches the ideal; a two-year leap can
  • Airbnb's Pixar-storyboarded keyframes and instant-booking came from this

“what is the theoretical minimum cost for moving money into a market what is the theoretical maximum speed”

Nilan Peiris · 23:00

“something I learned at Airbnb is this idea of working backwards from the ideal instead of working forwards from like how do we iterate”

Lenny · 23:30
#strategy#product#first-principles#airbnb
Explainer25:30

How Wise Cut Prices: Allocate Every Cost Back to the Transaction

Rather than losing money on transfers, Wise stays profitable on every transaction by allocating each bill down to the customer or transaction that generated it, then adding margin. Analysis shows 20% of customers generate 80% of costs, so Wise raises prices on that heavy segment to cover their costs and drops the price for everyone else.

  • Every incurred cost is allocated back to the transaction that caused it, then margin added
  • Costs get traced atomically (e.g. a support call routed to its currency pair)
  • 20% of customers generate 80% of the costs
  • Give the heavy 20% a raise to cover their costs; drop the price for everyone else

“every single Bill we got we allocated the cost back to the customer or the transaction that generated it and then we add our margin…”

Nilan Peiris · 26:30

“you get those 20 you give them a raise because they should cover their costs and you drop the price for everyone else”

Nilan Peiris · 27:00
#pricing#unit-economics#fintech#strategy
Explainer1:04:30

Product Marketing: Closing the Gap Between Value Done and Value Perceived

A PM on the referral team realized customers believed they saved money but didn't believe the actual number. He iterated a comparison graph with real users in a coffee shop until it landed, put it on the transfer success page with a share button, and 3x'd the sharing rate. Nilan calls closing this delta between what you delivered and what users perceive 'product marketing.'

  • Customers believed they saved money but didn't believe the specific number
  • The PM iterated a bank-vs-Wise comparison graph with real users until it clicked
  • Placed on the success page with a share button, it 3x'd the sharing rate
  • Same pattern with speed: an animation showing the transfer was instant lifted referrals

“he realized that people believed they saved money but they didn't believe the number”

Nilan Peiris · 1:05:00

“closing this Delta between what you've done and what you perceived to be done is what I call product marketing”

Nilan Peiris · 1:07:30
#product-marketing#referral#perception#word-of-mouth

Story· 4

Story04:30

70% of Wise's New Users Come From Word of Mouth

Nilan shares the scale Wise has reached: moving about $12 billion a month, profitable for over four years, with 16 million customers. The stat he is proudest of is that of the roughly one million new customers a quarter, more than two-thirds discover Wise through a friend rather than paid marketing.

  • Wise moves ~$12 billion a month, growing 30-40% year on year
  • Takes about 0.65% on average across all routes; profitable 4+ years
  • 16 million customers, ~10 million active, ~1 million new per quarter
  • Last month, 700,000 of the new users found out about Wise from a friend

“we acquired 70 of the users that found out about wise last month through Word of Mouth so contextually we have 16 million customers”

Nilan Peiris · 05:00
#word-of-mouth#growth#fintech#metrics
Story29:30

Doing the Unscalable: How Wise Won Singapore's First eKYC License

Singapore's regulator granted Wise a license but required them to physically meet every customer face to face. Wise sent a team, opened an office, and ran a deliberately expensive, unscalable in-person verification, then got those customers to complain to the government, winning the world's first eKYC license after a year of lobbying.

  • Regulator required face-to-face verification for every customer
  • Wise ran an expensive, unscalable in-person office as a stepping stone
  • They got customers to complain to the government, not to Wise
  • After a year of lobbying, they won the world's first eKYC license (selfie + ID)

“we got the customers not to complain to us but to complain to the government it took a year of lobbying”

Nilan Peiris · 31:00

“that's what I call a 10x better experience than anyone else in the market and that led to advocacy and word of mouth off the…”

Nilan Peiris · 31:00
#regulation#singapore#do-things-that-dont-scale#story
Story32:00

The Mission Email That Beat Every Marketing Campaign

When Wise rebranded years ago, they broke their mission and emailed it to customers. That email, with no call to action and no sign-up button, got forwarded around and brought in more new customers than any other marketing. Nilan attributes it to the authenticity of founders genuinely upset about the cost of moving money.

  • The mission email had no CTA, no sign-up button, nothing to click
  • Customers forwarded it saying 'you should check out Wise'
  • It brought more new customers than any other marketing channel
  • It worked because the mission was authentic, not a growth scheme

“we got more new customers from that email being forwarded around than any other kind of marketing”

Nilan Peiris · 32:30

“this email broke all the rules of marketing it did have a call to action it didn't have a button to sign up it didn't…”

Nilan Peiris · 32:30
#mission#brand#word-of-mouth#marketing
Story46:30

The 'Crazy Idea' Currency Converter That Drove Huge Traffic

Wise has a culture where teams can pursue ideas even when leadership thinks they're crazy. Nilan cites the currency converter on the Wise homepage: he and Kristo thought capturing that generic search traffic was a crazy idea, but the founder and SEO team built it anyway and it became a huge source of visits and discovery.

  • Currency-converter search has enormous traffic
  • Leadership thought building one to capture it was a crazy idea
  • The founder and SEO team built it anyway and it became huge
  • Wise's converter shows its price and lets you sign up, driving discovery

“this is a crazy idea and the founder and the SEO team went out and built it and it's like huge”

Nilan Peiris · 47:30
#seo#culture#growth#story

Q&A· 1

Q&A1:11:00

Nilan's Favorite Interview Question

Instead of asking candidates why they want to join, Nilan asks what most frustrates them about where they currently work. The answer reveals what they're running away from, usually something broken they were unable to fix, which exposes their limits and whether they'll hit the same wall at your company.

  • Ask what frustrates them now, not why they want to join
  • It reveals what they're running away from, not the rehearsed pitch
  • Usually there's something broken they couldn't fix
  • Probing it shows their limits and where they get stuck

“what frustrates you the most about where you're working right now”

Nilan Peiris · 1:11:30

“what's interesting trying to figure out is what they're running away from and usually there's something broken there”

Nilan Peiris · 1:11:30
#hiring#interviewing#management#lightning-round

Takeaway· 2

Takeaway13:30

People Only Talk When You're 8-10x Better, Not 10% Better

Being marginally better doesn't drive word of mouth. When Wise entered a market priced at 5.9 against an alternative of 6, users switched but stayed silent. Advocacy only kicked in when Wise was eight to ten times cheaper.

  • A small price edge wins customers but earns no advocacy
  • Wise only got people talking when it was 8-10x cheaper
  • The bar for word of mouth is far higher than the bar for adoption

“we only got the advocacy when we were eight to ten times cheaper that's when that's when the uh that's when people started talking about…”

Nilan Peiris · 14:00
#word-of-mouth#pricing#advocacy#growth
Takeaway16:30

The Strongest Trust Signal Is a Friend, Not Your Landing Page

Trust was Nilan's hardest problem in marketing for a cheap money-transfer product that sounds too good to be true. What actually solved it was that people trust their friends far more than any trust element on a landing page, so delivering a recommendation-worthy experience shortcuts most trust problems.

  • A cheap money-transfer pitch triggers 'is this safe / reputable' doubts
  • A friend's recommendation is a far stronger trust signal than any landing page
  • Marketing aids recall, but the friend's endorsement does the trust work
  • Best shortcut: make the experience so good customers recommend it

“what people trust is their friends and this really was way stronger a trust signal than anything I could put on a landing page”

Nilan Peiris · 17:30
#trust#word-of-mouth#marketing#growth