Growth Hacking - 5 Rules for Success

Growth Hacking is what Silicon Valley startups are constantly thinking about, and now all projects are at the initial stage in our country. What is it? How to properly configure the company and its employees for rapid growth? We publish 5 rules for those who want to achieve rapid company growth, from Lincoln Murphy. The article is written in the first person.

At the moment, Growth Hacking is an extremely popular phenomenon: in fact, anyone who is even a little connected with marketing or product development, prefers to call himself a growth hacker. And since every second defines himself in this way, this term begins to gradually lose its significance. However, that which includes the concept of Growth Hacking (or whatever it will be called in the future) will continue to exist and, in fact, will now substantially transform the industry as a whole.

In a very general sense, I describe Growth Hacking as a way of thinking. It is based on the understanding of customers and users, their behavior, market dynamics and technical capabilities. And of course, imagination is indispensable here: all of the above items must be successfully combined for maximum growth. But what does all this really mean? Let's dig deeper into the definition of Growth Hacking to bring clarity, both for ourselves and for the benefit of readers.

1. Understanding what you need to grow

According to Sean Ellis, Growth Hacker is a person whose true guideline is growth. Such a definition leaves a lot of room for interpretation, but in fact it is not so bad. And although some argue that Growth Hacking has nothing to do with revenue growth, I think this is complete nonsense.

The concept of growth and the choice of the most accurate metrics that determine it are 100% unique for every company that wants to grow. Therefore, you need to understand what exactly you are aiming for: the number of registrations, profit, customer acquisition and retention, perhaps viral marketing? Having determined the goal, you can begin to realize it.

And to do this on a grand scale, you need to understand the following.

2. First, social engineering, then computer engineering

When you try to create something without first gaining a deep understanding of human behavior (both on a general scale and in the context of your particular field), you are most likely to expect only limited success. But if you spend as much time studying psychology and user behavior as studying the latest trends in marketing and growth hacking, you will be much more successful in implementing your marketing strategy.
Understanding human behavior in the context of your application or service will really help you discover the most effective Growth Hacking tactics and optimize costs.



The best Growth Hackers know that when achieving effective growth, one should not think about the products or services that they promote, first of all all attention should be directed to the user and the client. Of course, understanding their behavior should be used in their own interests, for profit. However, success can only be counted on if the interests of the users are taken into account, and then their own.

Once you get an idea of ​​the role social engineering plays in applied sociology, you can move on to the next point.

3. Strengthening the network effect

Sometimes the occurrence of a network effect is obvious, sometimes not. Sometimes you need to scale to the masses, but you can also benefit from micro-networks, they may be enough to significantly expand the business. It is very rarely possible to launch a network effect where it does not occur naturally. But often it is possible to strengthen, extrapolate, or otherwise use even its very weak manifestations, if you just try to do it.
I am upset by the “experts” who claim the impossibility of virus spread for the cloud services of the B2B segment. I am sure that this prejudice has stopped at least a few people from finding solutions in this area.

In practice, it turns out that in the course of joint work, people perform certain actions in a certain way. When they interact with their team, subordinates, boss, corporate leaders, partner organizations, suppliers and customers, they obey certain patterns in their behavior. A thorough study of these behaviors, understanding why this is happening (in terms of the goals of their actions and psychology) is the key to the rapid growth of market share (at the macro level) and the popularity of the brand (at the micro level).

Identify the actions that users take within the network in which you plan to expand your audience, and popularize them with the help of social and computer engineering, this will be Growth Hacking.

Imagine that you need to bring a cloud service with a B2b business model to fast and significant growth. Perhaps we can never reach the Facebook or Twitter level in terms of viral coefficient. However, we can reach a completely unheard-of level of growth in the B2b segment simply by identifying the natural patterns of behavior that exist in the contact network of a certain audience.

Further, with the help of social and computer engineering, we use them for profit. It's simple. Not quite easy, but simple.
You must also remember that ...

4. Growth Hacking is not free

So, even if your promotion strategy does not involve the use of fixed-cost tools (for example, contextual advertising with pay per click), Growth Hacking requires time-consuming, and time is money. People often don’t value their time, and it’s not just about startups. You must understand that Growth Hacking costs money, even if it is through "free" channels. Channels related to growth potential should not be ignored because of their high cost; this way of thinking contradicts Growth Hacking philosophy.

Undoubtedly, high costs may not fit into the plans of individuals and companies, especially those that require development according to the bootstrapping method - without attracting investments. However, for a real business, the owners of which understand the importance of attracting customers and disseminating information, enhancing the network effect, investing money in growth makes sense. However, in general ...

5. A culture of growth is needed

Growth Hacking tactics must be applied according to certain rules. At the moment, there are books and hundreds of articles about the famous Growth Hacks - projects Hotmail, Paypal, AirBnb and many others. Each of them speaks of one particular trick that worked in each individual case. For example, the postscript “PS: I Love You. Get Your Free Email at Hotmail ”caused a viral spread of information about the project.

The dynamics of the company since the introduction of this hack


Paypal and AirBnb were able to succeed due to the competent use of the already popular services - eBay and Craiglist, respectively.
Everyone who posted an apartment for rent on AirBnb could simultaneously post information on Craiglist, the company made this possible, despite the lack of an API on Craiglist.



Subsequently, it began to look like this:


Unfortunately, only a few try to figure out what really prompted the company to apply certain tactics. Most people do not realize that success was not due simply to the bare Growth Hacks working in a vacuum. Yes, these tactics were successful, but this is the result of the right culture of growth in the company as well. These companies really considered growth to be their main guideline, and it was not just about an individual who worked within the organization, but about every employee. Most likely, the same tactics will most likely fail if implemented in an environment where the idea of ​​growth is not cultivated, where this is not one of the main goals. In other words, in an environment that does not share the mindset of true Growth Hackers, such tricks are unlikely to work.

I assume that today the popularity of Growth Hacking is due to the following:

1) The way of thinking, where the idea of ​​growth is at the head of the whole strategy, finally got a bright name.

2) People began to notice how ineffective their marketing was, and they believed that Growth Hacking should certainly bring them success.

Unfortunately, when I talked to more conservative marketing directors (this often happened after a conversation with the executive director), they talked about Growth Hacking as one of a number of other tactics located somewhere between Adwords and e-mail newsletters. For them, this is just another campaign or, worse, a quick and easy panacea for all ailments.

In most cases, Growth Hacking should not be seen as a means to quickly solve problems; often it requires changes in the work of the entire company. Some organizations are simply not geared towards growth simply because of a certain structure. Sometimes they do not have the space to implement the flexible techniques necessary for monitoring, competent management and constant iteration of these tactics. My experience shows that such companies cannot fully utilize Growth Hacking.

And although I argue that Growth Hacking is useful not only for startups, the need for it is especially obvious for growing (of course) companies at an early stage of development. They do not want to take small, carefully calculated risks. On the contrary, the more risky the enterprise, the more it inspires them. “But how else can you enter the market?” They ask. Really how?

In organizations not at risk - usually (but not always) these are large and old companies - all activities, on the contrary, are aimed at maintaining the status quo, preventing errors and instability in general. Growth Hacking techniques are unlikely to be used in such conditions: there is a high probability of another failure.

While Growth Hacking is often conducted at bottom-up companies, the most successful cases have occurred in organizations with an authoritarian, growth-oriented management style, where this ideology has been introduced by management. It’s worth thinking about it.

Source: sixteenventures.com/growth-hacking-rules