Biggest fails: over-optimizing onboarding

On the podcast we talk with Tanmay and Jack about how earned media can drive paid performance, building features that make for good tweets, and why stripping out your onboarding quiz might beat optimizing it.

Top Takeaways:

📊Pricing should match how users think — not how AI works
One of the biggest wins came from simplifying pricing. For ElevenReader, selling listening time instead of tokens or credits dramatically improved clarity and conversion. Abstracting away AI complexity for consumers is not dumbing things down — it’s good product sense.

🏎️Small, autonomous “pods” enable speed to become the moat

Instead of one massive org, ElevenLabs operates like 10–12 startups inside the company. Small teams with full ownership can ship fast, iterate relentlessly, and make real product decisions without waiting on heavy processes — a critical edge in fast-moving AI markets.

💸Earned media compounds — and fuels paid performance

ElevenLabs treats launches as compounding assets. Each launch earns attention, which boosts branded search, improves paid efficiency, and makes future launches stronger. Growth isn’t just ads vs. organic — it’s a flywheel where story, brand, and performance reinforce each other.

🕊️Start launches with the “tweet thread,” not the feature
Before building launch assets, teams write the Twitter/X thread first. If a feature can’t be explained clearly and compellingly in a short narrative, it’s a red flag. This keeps teams focused on real user value instead of shipping “flashy but hollow” features.

🌐 Consumer apps are a strategic advantage for platform companies
ElevenLabs doesn’t see consumer apps as competing with its API customers — they’re a force multiplier. Being their own best customer helps them build better APIs, understand real user needs, and strengthen brand affinity across creators, consumers, and developers.

About Tanmay Jain & Jack McDermott

🚀 Mobile Growth Lead, ElevenLabs

📱 Tanmay Jain leads mobile growth for the core ElevenLabs app, focused on translating ElevenLabs’ powerful web + API capabilities into a mobile-native experience that’s simple, fast, and creative-first. He brings a founder mindset from previous roles (including Canva), and shares how ElevenLabs ships through small, autonomous pods — moving quickly, running experiments (like pricing + paywalls), and holding teams accountable to what actually improves the user experience.

👋 LinkedIn

🚀 Mobile Growth Lead, ElevenReader

📱 Jack McDermott leads mobile growth for ElevenReader, ElevenLabs’ consumer app that turns PDFs, articles, and books into lifelike audio — powered by a massive catalog of high-quality voices. He breaks down how ElevenLabs uses earned media to amplify paid performance, why launches start with the “tweet thread” narrative, and how simplifying pricing (selling listening time instead of tokens) can dramatically improve consumer conversion.

👋 LinkedIn

Follow us on X: 

• David Barnard - @drbarnard
• Jacob Eiting - @jeiting
• RevenueCat - @RevenueCat
• SubClub - @SubClubHQ

Episode Highlights:
[0:00] Why consumers won’t pay in “tokens” — they pay in outcomes

[2:13] The case for building consumer apps and an API (without competing with customers)

[4:10] ElevenLabs’ operating system: 10–12 “speedboat” pods shipping in parallel

[7:20] The Canva spin-out lesson: award-winning product ≠ distribution or retention

[12:07] Monetization that matches intent: “hours of listening” vs creator credits

[13:30] Two growth modes at once: compounding earned-media launches + steady paid UA

[16:27] Why earned media makes paid cheaper (branded search + trust lift)

[19:30] The launch playbook: write the Twitter thread first → turn it into a video

[32:20] “Speed is the moat” — and how they avoid shipping gimmicks

[36:57] Don’t copy Spotify Wrapped — find your product’s natural shareable moment

[43:31] ElevenReader’s “aha”: bring your own PDF/ebook + pick a voice worth sharing

[56:58] Biggest fail: over-optimizing onboarding instead of testing the “strip it back” base case