Culture is hard to build. Especially when you are trying to do something new mid-way of your business journey. Asking for reform in culture is equivalent to asking to change the mindset that is sure to face a great deal of friction. There has been a lot of discussion and content around creating a culture of experimentation. But only a few companies have succeeded in this endeavor and have risen above their competitors. So how were they able to do it? What were those foundational bottlenecks that these companies have to solve? Arash Vakil is a product strategy consultant, startup advisor, and tech investor. Having led organizations as a C-level executive, Arash is well aware of the common reasons why experimentation culture is hard to build. In his presentation, he will share excerpts from his conversations with other C-level execs and factors that lead to a bias. Arash will also talk about the recipe for successfully creating a culture shift within your organization, one that embraces experimentation.

1. DISRUPT WITH US
I N V E S T O R S . A D V I S O R S . B U I L D E R S .

2. FOUNDATIONAL BOTTLENECKS IN
CREATING EXPERIMENTATION CULTURE
(AND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM)
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3. SHARE MY EXPERIENCE
WHAT WORKS
WHAT DOESN'T
HAVE FUN
GOALS FOR THE NEXT 30 MINUTES:
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4. PITCHDECKV1.0
Increase clarity, confidence, trust, and urgency
Eliminate distractions, confusion, and anxiety
We help grow your business with proven tactics and
strategies:
Focus on making your product great, and we’ll focus on
converting them. We ensure every step of the funnel is
converting at its potential and eliminate user frustrations that
cost you conversions.
Conversion Rate Optimization
How We
Help
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5. PITCHDECKV1.0
Our dedicated team will focus on enhancing your product’s
ranking and discoverability on Google Search results, Google
Play, and the App Store.
We aim to increase brand exposure, positive app reviews, and
ratings
Search Engine Optimization /
App Store Optimization
How We
Help
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6. PITCHDECKV1.0
Cost-effective and highly skilled global team members that we
trust and rely on for incubating in-house products.
These teams have designed and developed scalable products
that have touched over a billion people
Experienced Design & Development Teams:
How We
Help
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7. What does it mean to have a
culture of experimentation?
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10. A culture of experimentation consists of a
methodical process where we generate and test
hypotheses, and then respond to the data to guide
the next steps in our decision-making processes
We follow these steps because we know that
experimentation leads to innovation
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To the rest of us

11. ...but how do we get to this promise land?
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12. ...why is there so much resistance?
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14. Common Reasons
Cost - "It costs too much."
Time - "We don't have the staff."
Ego - "Why? I know what we should do."
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15. Cost
Today's tools are similarly priced to other SaaS tools and are
equally as mission critical
Free tools exist, but lacking in some functionality
Any win could have game-changing effects on your business
Imagine 2% gains in key metrics in your business and the
impact it can have down the funnel
Too large of an opportunity to pass up
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I N V E S T O R S . A D V I S O R S . B U I L D E R S .

16. Time
Today's tools save time by allowing the Product and
Marketing teams to lead the testing cycles without involving
their engineering counterparts
Engineering teams can continue to innovate and drive the
technology forward while we in Product and Marketing can
push forward without distraction
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17. Ego
CEO - “Why are we testing when I know it’s going to work?”
Let's take the necessary steps to ensure it's the right direction for the
good of the business.
Changes in business performance can happen due to market
externalities unrelated to the business and hiding the true impact
and creating a false positive/negative
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18. Ego
CMO - “Our business would be better if we re-positioned it and
targeted X clientele.”
Great hypothesis! An A/B on our homepage would help us validate this
and enable us to double down in that direction... (or save us from
making a huge mistake)
Not A/B testing and relying on "eyeballing" user metrics in
aggregate has the potential to mask changes to your business.
e.g. multiple 2% declines in a business that will go undetected
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19. Ego
CFO - “Discount the product to increase sales. We’ll definitely hit our
revenue targets for the quarter”
The goal is to increase revenue this quarter. Are we ok with sacrificing
LTV for short-term gain? How might we achieve that without sacrificing
LTV?
In this scenario, we could A/B test the impact of such a change and
measure the LTV of the change to measure if this is a strategy we
should continue to employ.
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20. ...people don't want to be wrong
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22. YOUR IDEAS CAN'T BE WRONGYOUR IDEAS CAN'T BE WRONG
IF YOU DON'T TEST THEMIF YOU DON'T TEST THEM

24. DISRUPT WITH US
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...now what?

25. ASSEMBLEASSEMBLE
YOUR TEAMYOUR TEAM
S T E P 1S T E P 1

28. A cross-functional team is key in generating hypotheses
that will impact your business
Everyone uses different products and have different
passions and experiences they can draw from
Assembling your team
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29. Top Grossing Apps
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30. Tear down walls between different functional areas and
build alliances to build broad support for testing
initiatives
Assembling your team
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31. INSIGHTSINSIGHTS
S T E P 2S T E P 2

32. Do your research & analyze the areas of opportunities
Is the data showing a large drop-off between key points in
your funnel?
Highlight areas that need improvement based on data
and conversations with senior execs
Gain alignment on the needs of the business based on
company mission statements and organizational goals
Insights
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33. START SMALLSTART SMALL
S T E P 3S T E P 3

34. DISRUPT WITH US
I N V E S T O R S . A D V I S O R S . B U I L D E R S .
Avoid the big wins (initially) and focus on micro-wins
for momentum:
Going for big wins can be tempting but it can
increase the time to launch
Require additional stakeholder buy-in (VP/C-level's
page)
Take longer to get to statistical significance (e.g.
checkout flow)
Start Small

35. Focus on non-controversial items, perhaps higher up
in the funnel.
If your goal is typically revenue and sales conversions,
think about the steps that lead to that event. Can you:
Drive more visits to the Contact Us form
Get more users to start filling out a form
Entice more users to start the checkout process
Start Small
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36. SHOW AND TELL!SHOW AND TELL!
(OFTEN!)(OFTEN!)
S T E P 4S T E P 4

37. End to end, open & publicly accessible plans and
communication channels:
Public Slack channel to solicit ideas for consideration
Trello/Airtable/JIRA for visibility
Weekly newsletter summaries
Show and Tell
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38. DISRUPT WITH US
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Show and Tell

39. Show and Tell
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40. Key discussion points:
What tests are Live?
What results should we review?
What tests are in the queue?
Should we reprioritize?
What new hypotheses do we have?
Show and Tell
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I N V E S T O R S . A D V I S O R S . B U I L D E R S .

42. M A S T E R Y O D A
The greatest
teacher,
failure is.

43. DISRUPT WITH US
I N V E S T O R S . A D V I S O R S . B U I L D E R S .
Highlight both success AND failures
Failures must be celebrated
It’s OK to be wrong, these are learning opportunities
“We tried to highlight our features using more 'techie' terminology but
it didn't resonate with our users"
"We thought by adding more information, we could convince the user
to sign up
Sweeping failures under the rug doesn't build trust in
the process
Show and Tell

44. Make the results relatable in terms that resonate with
senior execs in all scenarios
CEO -
We increased ARPU by 12%
We avoided a 28% decline in ARPU
CTO
We saved 8 hours of engineering time
CMO
We increased conversion on our landing pages by 5%.
Our CAC would have increased by 7%
DISRUPT WITH US
I N V E S T O R S . A D V I S O R S . B U I L D E R S .
Show and Tell

45. DISRUPT WITH US
I N V E S T O R S . A D V I S O R S . B U I L D E R S .
Contact Us
team@disruptwith.us
www.disruptwith.us
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