Alex Schultz explains how Facebook resurrects churned users

Alex is asked by a founder in the audience how Facebook resurrects churned users, to which he responds:

“I think there’s a big question about why people leave. Generally folks over-index on the idea that people don’t like the product and leave. Usually what happens though is they don’t actually get to the point where they see the value in the product.”

With respect to Facebook specifically, most users churn because they didn’t find their friends. So as Alex explains, Facebook’s resurrection strategy is all about getting them to that magic moment of finding their friends.

“The best thing we can do is have their friends send friend requests so we can notify them, they come back, see more and more friends, and get a a fuller newsfeed and have a great experience…. That’s really the main reason people don’t ramp up on Facebook. And realistically, most of the leaving Facebook is not leaving, it’s not ramping up. And so what we do is optimize on getting them to the magic moment when they’re on the site. If they’re not on the site, get someone else to send them a friend request. Notify them of that. When they come back, get them more friends. It’s very focused and we’ve stayed that way for 8 years, and it’s really worked.”

Full video: Khosla Ventures “Growth | Alex Schultz“ (Jun 2015)