Blow Their Socks Off: The 10x Word-of-Mouth Bar
To earn recommendation, give users an experience they didn't know was previously possible
- Difficulty
- Expert
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 90%
Most teams stop building once a product works, then optimize conversion for a bit more growth. Peiris argues recommendation only comes when you deliver something no one has done before — an experience users didn't know was possible. That means setting the goal at the theoretical limit (minimum cost, maximum speed) rather than iterating incrementally, because a 10x-better product by definition doesn't already exist.
Origin
Nilan Peiris at Wise, cross-pollinated with the 'work backwards from the ideal' practice he cites from his time at Airbnb.
Core principles
- 01Users only recommend what genuinely surprises them
- 02Incremental improvement can never reach a step-change destination
- 03Ask for the theoretical minimum/maximum, not a marginal gain
- 04A 10x-better product doesn't exist yet, so shortcuts (plugging in someone else's infrastructure) can't produce it
- 05Hard, systemic problems have huge returns and take years — that's the moat
How to run it
- 1
Talk to customers and find the pillars
Through NPS comments and customer conversations, identify the two or three attributes that come up again and again (for Wise: price, speed, ease of use). These become the levers worth a decade of work.
- 2
Define the theoretical ideal for each pillar
Ask 'what is the theoretical minimum cost?' and 'what is the theoretical maximum speed?' — not 'how do we make it a bit better'. Make it instant; make it as cheap as it could possibly be.
Pro tip Work backwards from the ideal end-state instead of forwards from your current product. Airbnb literally hired a Pixar storyboard artist to draw 12 keyframes of the perfect host/guest journey and made that the multi-year strategy.
- 3
Reject the incremental shortcut
Don't plug in an existing solution to enter a market fast — it gets users but no hockey-stick, because you haven't fundamentally changed the underlying problem.
Watch out Getting users quickly via a shortcut feels logical but is usually wasted effort; it produces adoption without advocacy.
- 4
Invest with conviction and patience
Commit multi-year effort and management air-cover to solve the systemic problem, even when growth is slow and marketing tabs are tempting to turn on.
Watch out Requires cultural patience — no quarterly deadline for 'create a bank in Singapore'. Without executive air-cover the team abandons hard problems for quick wins.
In the wild
Historically you requested to book and hosts ignored or rejected guests ~50% of the time. Asking 'if someone disrupted Airbnb today, what would it look like?' the answer was obvious: just book, like everywhere else online.
→ Instant bookings rose to over 80% of bookings, removing the core friction of the guest experience.
Retail money transfer had cost ~6-7% since the Medicis. Wise set the goal at the theoretical floor and re-engineered the systemic infrastructure costs rather than shaving points.
→ Wise launched at ~0.5% and drove average price down to ~0.35%, becoming the cheap, fast option people evangelize.
Common mistakes
Stopping at 'it works' and polishing conversion
A slicker funnel yields a little more growth but never recommendation. Advocacy requires an experience users didn't know was possible, which a conversion tweak can't deliver.
Entering a market by plugging in existing infrastructure
It's the fast, logical move but it doesn't change the fundamental problem, so growth stays flat instead of hockey-sticking — wasted effort dressed as progress.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders and product leaders attacking entrenched, systemic problems who can secure years of patience and management air-cover
Not ideal for
Teams needing fast incremental wins, or markets where a 'good enough' improvement already satisfies users and a 10x rebuild isn't economically justified
From the transcript
“to get to recommendation you can blow your users socks off you have to give them an experience they didn't know was previously possible”
“when you're in that place of doing something that no one has ever done before that's when you get it”
“what is the theoretical minimum cost for moving money into a market what is the theoretical maximum speed”
“working backwards from the ideal instead of working forwards from like how do we iterate”
From the episode
How to drive word of mouth
Nilan Peiris (CPO of Wise)