🕹 Referrals

The what, how and why behind First 1000's referral program

Hello Frens 👋

I hope you are having a fine day! Today I am (re)launching the First 1000 referral program, and I want to use this issue to celebrate and give my thanks to all the early adopters.

The way referrals work at First 1000 is a little bit different. This is why I want to take a moment to explain how the program works because I think it’s really elegant!

The Mechanics

• Every month, I introduce one reward with just one milestone (hit X to get Y). For instance, in March, people who got 10 or more referrals get a shoutout in the newsletter.

• The difficulty and reward change every month. April will be a new reward (50+ early decks of now 🦄s). You will need to refer 4 people to get access to it.

• On the first day of every month, everyone’s referral count is set back to 0. It’s a level playing field for everyone.

Why I think this would work?

• Bet number 1: People won’t get “stuck” on a referral milestone.

  Using a tiered referral system, it becomes increasingly harder to hit the next milestone (going from 25 referrals to 100 or from 100 to 500 is excruciatingly hard, compared to from 1→5). With my system, since everyone starts from 0 each month and each month’s rewards are different, I am betting people will continue referring 1 member, then 10, then 3, then 5..etc. every month (assuming the rewards offer way more value than the effort required), no one will get stuck in a this-is-just-way-too-hard zone

• Bet number 2: Sunk cost plays in

  By only having one reward each month, people who invested just a little effort to refer 1 or 2 friends will put in the extra effort to get to 5 or 10 (or whatever number is required to get the reward). Otherwise, the 1 or 2 referrals will go to waste when referral counts are reset to 0 at the end of the month.

• Bet number 3: Urgency plays in

  New rewards that change every month create urgency. If someone sees a reward they want, the only way to get it is by hitting the milestone before the end of the month. Otherwise, they’ll miss the boat!

Now that I spilled all my secrets, I would like to take the remainder of this newsletter to shout out everyone who referred more than ten people in March.

Thank you to:

• Klodi who is killing with Crio: a place for animators to showcase their work and provide perks to fans!

• Jacob who is tinkering away at Zest: a Gen-Z-oriented company teaching youngsters about food in an environment where everything feels like progress. Think Duolingo but for cooking!

• Babfemi who is working on definitions: a blog about life, creativity, productivity he acquired through the years

• Yash who is building Relife: A community of motivated people for building healthy life habits.

• Mouad who is all about the NFT game

• and Sarah who is building an immersive subscription kit for kids and grown-ups to connect over the topics that matter in LIFE. MILLU is live on Kickstarter and is 50% oversubscribed.

To everyone listed above, THANK YOU for being early supporters!

Until we meet next week,

Ali Abouelatta