Every year, Growth Hacking method is helping many startups to demonstrate a rapid growth rate in a short period. After launching, they quickly stand out within their sector or even demonstrate a high-ranking position in a global scale.
Since Sean Ellis came up with the method of Growth Hacking, he has helped many startups to utilize that during their launch and development process. As the original Growth Hacker, Sean has directly led growth at Dropbox, LogMeIn, Lookout, and Eventbrite and has also provided coaching and workshops to some of the world’s fastest growing companies.
What is Growth Hacking?
In 2010, Sean Ellis, founder and CEO of GrowthHackers, coined the term Growth Hacking. It is a set of activities, strategies and tools which applicable to early stage or startup companies. The general goal of Growth Hacking is to acquire as many costumers or users as possible (early adopters) within the shortest time and by spending the least of resources.
Nowadays, not only startups but also the well-established companies and enterprises implement Growth Hacking successfully. It helps these entities to gain a massive load of growth within a short time and on a small budget.
The solution had been found in just weeks, using a recipe that includes healthy doses of out-of-the-box thinking, cross-company collaboration and problem solving, real time market testing and experimentation (conducted at little or no cost), and a commitment to being nimble and responsive in acting on the results.
__Sean Ellis – Hacking Growth
There is not a single magic recipe in Growth Hacking method to apply for every company. Each startup or enterprise uses the principles of this method to find out that creative and innovative unique solution which can help them the best. However, it mainly includes persuading the development team to make the products with built-in marketing features rather than just relying on a pricey launch, traditional marketing channels, or spending on advertisement.
Who can become a Growth Hacker?
A Growth Hacker is someone who can help the companies to Take Off, especially those which are facing aggressive competition and have limited budget. It is not made for nor limited only to marketers but significantly affect the new product development, innovation, and continuous improvement processes as well.
That is why the best choice would be putting a Growth Hacking “Team” together instead of an individual. A Growth Hacking Team is made up of marketers, developers, engineers, designers, product managers and so on who specifically focus on building and engaging the user base of a business.
Who can use Growth Hacking?
When you search and read about Growth Hacking stories, you will see the names of well-known and fastest growing brands. Some names like Dropbox, Airbnb, Pinterest, BitTorrent, Uber, LinkedIn and many more. The common myth about these “unicorns” is that their business idea was so great and brilliant, or as they say “lightning in a bottle”, that made them disrupt the market or take it by storm.
Unfortunately, that version of history is not true! Their massive growth and high rate of acceptance did not occur quickly nor easily. It is not the flawless conception of a disruptive product, a single insight, lucky breakthrough or stroke of genius that resulted in explosive success of these companies either.
The truth is, their success is a result of implementing a suitable and fitting methodology, super-fast generation and testing of the different new ideas in product development and marketing, proper collection, analysis and use of data collected on user behavior and finally to find out the best and winning idea and further developing it.
How to implement Growth Hacking?
Growth Hacking is a game changer in customer acquisition, retention and revenue growth, just like the way that agile development and Lean Startup methods have revolutionized the product development and business model of processes.
Any company which can establish and use the following “core elements” of Growth Hacking methodology, can apply it to their organization:
- Creating a cross-functional team (or teams) to breakdown the traditional structure of marketing and product development and rebuild them embedded in each other.
- Utilizing qualitative and quantitative data analysis to gain a deep insight on user behavior and preferences.
- Rapid generation of ideas, putting them on test, collecting and monitoring the results and making decisions to act base on the outcomes.
Check our Workshops page to discover more useful tools for developing your team and projects.