The Teardown

Grammarly's User Adjacent Expansion into universities, schools, and global education institutions through WoM Viral Acquisition Loops!

Starting with an anecdote:

When I was in grad school in Sweden at Lund University School of Economics and Management, all courses and writing assignments were in English. The professors suggested to the entire diverse group of students - we recommend using Grammarly. Ofc, I knew what Grammarly was, I'd been using it for years.

Let's break this down.

Grammarly has a strong Word of Mouth Viral Acquisition loop.

This is due to:

strong intrinsic rewards and triggers such as "feeling good" and "seeing the correction in real time"
due to experienced value, psychology tells us humans want to share intrinsic rewards/emotions with others
jobs to be done lift is small; so many writers make a living writing so this is an easy freemium option and quick time to value (practically instant!)

However, the uniqueness lies within the product's ability to spread quickly. More on this:

Once a new user reaches the academic level, the network effects are rapid
Professors and teachers also want their non-native English (or native language) to improve Grammar so there is a mutual benefit to sharing Grammarly
Lastly, with the advent of technology in the writing space, we have crossed the chasm accepting the energy and responsibility educators can do teaching grammar (similarly to how calculators took a load off teachers knowing you can just use technology and free up space for other teachings)

The two milestones that Grammarly has accomplished:

Expanding your product within a new audience
Expanding your audience within your existing product

I love seeing expansion PLG loops that are NOT in the SaaS collaboration space. I find this one unique because it's B2C SaaS!