How to find hidden growth opportunities in your product | Albert Cheng (Duolingo, Grammarly, Chess.com)

Albert Cheng has led growth at three of the world’s most successful consumer subscription companies: Duolingo, Grammarly, and Chess.com. A former Google product manager (and serious pianist!), Albert developed a unique approach to finding and scaling growth opportunities through rapid experimentation and deep user psychology. His teams run 1,000 experiments a year, discovering counterintuitive insights that have driven tens of millions in revenue. What you’ll learn: 1. How to use the explore-exploit framework to find new growth opportunities 2. How showing premium features to free users doubled Grammarly’s upgrades to paid plans 3. What good retention looks like for a consumer subscription app 4. Why resurrected users drive 80% of mature product growth 5. Why “reverse trials” work better than time-based trials 6. The three pillars of successful gamification: core loop, metagame, and profile — Brought to you by: Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security. Jira Product Discovery—Confidence to build the right thing Miro—A collaborative visual platform where your best work comes to life — Where to find Albert Cheng: • X: https://x.com/albertc248 • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertcheng1/ • Chess.com: https://www.chess.com/member/Goniners — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — Referenced: • How Duolingo reignited user growth: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-duolingo-reignited-user-growth • Inside ChatGPT: The fastest-growing product in history | Nick Turley (Head of ChatGPT at OpenAI): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/inside-chatgpt-nick-turley • Explore vs. Exploit: https://brianbalfour.com/quick-takes/explore-vs-exploit • Grammarly: https://www.grammarly.com/ • Reforge: https://www.reforge.com/ • Chess.com: https://www.chess.com/ • Everyone’s an engineer now: Inside v0’s mission to create a hundred million builders | Guillermo Rauch (founder & CEO of Vercel, creators of v0 and Next.js): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/everyones-an-engineer-now-guillermo-rauch • Building Lovable: $10M ARR in 60 days with 15 people | Anton Osika (CEO and co-founder): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-lovable-anton-osika • Figma: https://www.figma.com/ • Cursor: https://cursor.com/ • The rise of Cursor: The $300M ARR AI tool that engineers can’t stop using | Michael Truell (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rise-of-cursor-michael-truell • Claude Code: https://www.anthropic.com/claude-code • GitHub Copilot: https://github.com/features/copilot • Noam Lovinsky on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noaml/ • The happiness and pain of product management | Noam Lovinsky (Grammarly, Facebook, YouTube, Thumbtack): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-happiness-and-pain-of-product • Kyla Siedband on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylasiedband/ • The Duolingo handbook: https://blog.duolingo.com/handbook/ • Lenny’s post on X about the Duolingo handbook: https://x.com/lennysan/status/1889008405584683091 • The rituals of great teams | Shishir Mehrotra of Coda, YouTube, Microsoft: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-rituals-of-great-teams-shishir • Duolingo on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@duolingo • Kasparov vs. Deep Blue | The Match That Changed History: https://www.chess.com/article/view/deep-blue-kasparov-chess • Magnus Carlsen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Carlsen • Elo rating system: https://www.chess.com/terms/elo-rating-chess • Stockfish: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockfish_(chess) • AlphaGo on Prime Video: https://www.primevideo.com/detail/AlphaGo/0KNQHKKDAOE8OCYKQS9WSSDYN0 • Statsig: https://www.statsig.com/ • The State of Product in 2026: Navigating Change, Challenge, and Opportunity: https://www.atlassian.com/blog/announcements/state-of-product-2026 • Erik Allebest on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erikallebest/ • Daniel Rensch on X: https://x.com/danielrensch • Chariot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariot_(company) • San Francisco 49ers: https://www.49ers.com/ • Breville Barista Express: https://www.breville.com/en-us/product/bes870 — Recommended books: • Snuggle Puppy!: A Little Love Song: https://www.amazon.com/Snuggle-Puppy-Little-Boynton-Board/dp/1665924985 • Ogilvy on Advertising: https://www.amazon.com/Ogilvy-Advertising-David/dp/039472903X • Dark Squares: How Chess Saved My Life: https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Squares-Chess-Saved-Life/dp/1541703286 — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com