Robinhood Growth Playbook

Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt realized that while the 'Big Banks' were paying nothing for trades, they were charging regular people $10 per transaction, keeping the markets closed to a whole generation.

The 'Zero-Commission' Price War & The 'Waitlist' Viral FOMO: Robinhood tacticaly won by 'Gamifying the Market'. Their growth engine was the '$0 Commission' trade, which forced the entire industry to follow or die. By using a 'Viral Waitlist' (where inviting friends moved you up the line), they gained 1M users before even launching an app. Their growth relies on 'The Mobile-First' UX—using haptics and confetti to make investing feel like a game, capturing the Gen-Z and Millennial market that felt intimidated by traditional, spreadsheet-like brokerages.