Should a company prioritize serving its most engaged power-user segment as the core of its business strategy?

Vlad Tenev · published Jul 14, 2025

The digitally native active trader is a distinct customer profile resembling gamers — needing frontier technology, speed and low latency — and requires purpose-built products

Getting into that customer's head was necessary to design products like the futures ladder and Robinhood Legend

10:40 Power users need purpose built frontier grade products

Vlad Tenev · published Jul 14, 2025

Recognizing active traders as the core of Robinhood's business and investing to serve them properly was the number one reason behind the company's turnaround

Active traders were driving far more revenue than the modeled first-time-investor business, were churning to other platforms because they were underserved, and are resilient across market conditions since they trade bearish and sideways strategies too

11:22 Recognizing and investing in power users drove the turnaround

David Meyer · published Nov 1, 2023

Products need fanatic power users; if a product tries to be everything to everyone it loses its fanatics

Fanatics generate the viral coefficient by talking about the product and bringing friends in, and they push the team to do unimaginable things and break through barriers; revenue is also concentrated in power users per the 80/20 rule

33:52 Fanatic power users drive virality and revenue so must not be diluted

Paul Graham · published Apr 2006

Sites should be designed for casual median visitors who arrive ready to hit the Back button, not for the people who already care.

The vast majority of visitors are casual; devoted users will find what they want themselves, and web users have been trained to click Back because most links lead to something lame.

source Design for the casual median visitor not the already devoted since devotees find what they want anyway