Illustration by Lu Zhang

Amelia Lin (MBA 2016) grew up feasting on the stories her parents told about how they met and what it was like for them to leave China to start a new life in the United States. These narratives were central to Lin’s sense of self, but they were also impossibly ephemeral and lost some of their charm when set down on paper. She eventually left her tech job at Udacity to focus on building a way to capture them. “I wanted to find a way to make it easy for my parents to share these stories, and I wanted it to be fun and something we could use from anywhere,” Lin says.

That journey became the genesis of Saga. Cofounded with Nicole Wee (MBA 2018), Saga is a social mobile app that helps families save and share stories in an audio format. Launched in mid-2020, the company currently has six full-time employees (from places like Instagram and Google), as well as venture backing from Bling Capital, DCM, and Precursor Ventures. Saga grew its initial customer base during the pandemic as families searched for ways to stay connected across the distance, Lin says.

Through the app, a user can share weekly questions or prompts. (What kind of trouble did you get into as a kid? What dishes did your parents prepare for holidays?) Family members then record their responses either within the app or, for those more comfortable with landline technology, by dialing in. The recordings are saved and can be shared privately within the family or chosen network.

Lin’s mother and father signed on as Saga’s first and second testers. “It was mandatory for them to enroll because, more than anything, I wanted their memories saved,” she says. And while the whole startup experience can often be a lonely one for the entrepreneur, building Saga has been a bonding experience for her own family. “Probably 50 percent of what my parents saved in Saga is stuff that I hadn’t heard before. It’s definitely brought us together,” she says.

As Saga looks to expand its customer base, particularly with families, Lin sees two potential paths. One is to go the scrappy startup route and find existing communities in which mothers are already congregating—in churches, through schools, on Facebook groups—and incentivize intensive word-of-mouth. “When people love the product, they recommend it to others in their group,” Lin says. “If you’re willing to do the legwork, you can reach a lot of people that way.”

The alternative might be less targeted initially but with bigger potential in the long term: pursuing partnerships or affiliate programs with larger entities that already sell to families, like the AARP. “Partnerships can be slow; it could be big but take longer to land them,” Lin acknowledges. What do you think: Should Saga start small and scale up—or aim bigger from the beginning? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

We asked a few Entrepreneurs-in-Residence from the HBS Rock Center for Entrepreneurship for their insights. Here’s what they had to say:

The competitive and customer context can be critical in deciding whether to go big quickly or be scrappy. Is the customer ready for your vision? Do you understand their needs well, and have you built the solution to delight them? If yes, then you are ready to scale. Is this likely to be a competitive, winner-take-all market? If so, then scaling quickly becomes important. Assuming Saga feels ready, and that now is the time in which to scale quickly, they should consider building the resources to have a portfolio of acquisition activities and prioritize the speed of learning which approach to marketing works. The scrappy activities that have kept them close to the customer, and let them iterate quickly on messaging and product, can start taking less of their time as they scale D2C marketing and partnership channels.

I would be cautious about going immediately to large partnerships as the only activity, since they can be extremely slow and don’t provide the opportunity for rapid iteration and learning that young startups often benefit from. Updating a contract with a large partner can take months (or even years!). In a new category like this, I would look to start with partners who demonstrate that they can move quickly and help Saga learn, while also experimenting with digital D2C marketing that can be rapidly iterated.
—Chad Laurans (MBA 2006), CEO and cofounder of SimpliSafe

Word of mouth is everything for a consumer startup. Not only is it the cheapest and most effective form of marketing, but it’s also the best signal that you actually have a good product that people want. Don’t know what your net promoter score is yet? I promise you it’s high if your customers are finding you through word of mouth. This is where I’d prioritize my attention.

That being said, why not move the ball forward with both strategies at the same time? An affiliate partnership usually doesn’t require intense resources to stand up, so it shouldn’t overburden you to test different acquisition techniques and double down on the ones that work.
—Matt Salzberg (MBA 2010), managing partner at Material, founder and chairman of Blue Apron, and cofounder of Embark Veterinary

Building consumer products is notoriously hard. It’s a long road to figure out what gets to the elusive product-market fit (PMF), and the revenue build is slow with each successful convert. Many startups run out of runway before getting there, so founders need to be particularly scrappy in gaining the most learning in the shortest period of time. That means fast product iterations unlock the greatest growth.

But therein lies the trick: Growth at the early stage isn’t the goal; it’s the indicator. The goal is learning what users need and value, and how successful you are is measured by growth in users, retention, and loyalty. It’s why the early emphasis should be on talking to users and building the product that better serves them. As companies hit PMF, the focus shifts to just hanging on and serving the growth that is unlocked. In exploring Saga’s question, then, the answer lies in which path better enables learning from the best users.

Which brings us to the second point: All users aren’t created equal. Having 1,000 users who rabidly love what you’re building, and who actively tell everyone they know about it, is significantly different than having 1,000 users who have downloaded your app and used it only once. If you find yourself in the latter camp, your challenge is to figure out who is a fanatic about what you’re building and to grow that group. This is particularly important when building for busy parents, because they don’t have time for so-so products. But give them a product that five friends have said is incredible, and it will take off like wildfire.

Lastly, consider if the options are bi-directional. For example, does focusing and winning with one choice protect for, or better enable, the latter—or does it actually make it harder? In Saga’s case, focusing on unlocking the individual user growth will create more credibility when working with partners. But bringing on partners without cementing a rave-worthy experience with individuals will make it harder to go back and create a stickier product experience.

My advice is to focus on learning and building within the existing parent communities, where Saga will be able to both win with the right first 1,000 users and also build a better product that will unlock rapid growth down the road. Big numbers and fancy logos can be tempting in the beginning, especially when individual wins feel so small and incremental, but inches become miles of moat in a way that will be hard to beat in the long run.
—Avni Patel Thompson (MBA 2008), founder and CEO of Milo, a tool for running and raising modern families, who previously founded the Y Combinator–backed Poppy and spent a decade building consumer businesses at P&G, Adidas, and Starbucks.

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