Sam Altman on early-stage growth

“Nothing but a great product will save you. You can get everything else right and it still won’t work.”

Most founders get this wrong:

They chase more users instead of more love.

Altman says you have two paths:

1️⃣ Deep & Narrow → A small group of users really love your product. → You learn from them, then expand.

2️⃣ Shallow & Wide → Lots of users who kind of like it. → You spend months trying to make them care.

With high confidence?

“You want to start with a small number of users that really love you. Almost all great companies start this way.”

What to track early on:

✅ Retention ✅ Frequency of use ✅ Word-of-mouth

Forget vanity metrics.

Find the users who can’t stop coming back and can’t stop talking about you.

Author

Ai Base Network (ABN), ABN ASIA was founded by people with deep roots in academia, with work experience in the US, Holland, Hungary, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Vietnam. ABN Asia is where academia and technology meet opportunity. With our cutting-edge solutions and competent software development services, we're helping businesses level up and take on the global scene. Our commitment: Faster. Better. More reliable. In most cases: Cheaper as well.

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