GTM Sauce

Super Unlimited · B2C · free VPN app

Launch a new feature in 5 countries behind a switch, then expand

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What they did

The per-country server/protocol selection algorithm would have taken months to build for all markets. Instead they shipped the version they believed right for five countries behind feature flags, planning to iterate on bugs or wrong assumptions and extend to other countries over time.

In their words

How the World's #1 VPN App Reached 1 Billion Downloads – Tanuj Chatterjee, Super Unlimited

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Tanuj ChatterjeeWe cannot compromise on privacy or trust, and we don't compromise on service quality. What we can compromise on is features. So, I'll give you an example. The algorithm itself for a VPN user, which server to connect to which protocol to use is very complex. And the algorithm that you need or the rules that you need to connect you in the US will be very different from somebody who's connecting from, let's say, Saudi Arabia.

Tanuj ChatterjeeWe have built a lot of domain expertise to understand what we need to do for which country. We were building this algorithm and it would've taken months and months to build it right. So we said, "Okay, you know what? Do we have this algorithm what we think is right for these five countries? Let's just launch it." So, we used feature flags and we used it just for those five countries. And for the rest, we can build over time.

Tanuj ChatterjeeWe could be wrong. We could have been wrong. In which case, we have to iterate on it and got it right. We could have introduced some bugs, so iterate it right now and get it right. So that's how we do it. We will do it in smaller chunks rather than build a big massive Taj Mahal and launch it.

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Tags: feature-flags, staged-rollout, per-country