
How to be a growth hacker - akshxy
http://andrewchen.co/2012/04/27/how-to-be-a-growth-hacker-an-airbnbcraigslist-case-study/
======
chimi
"Software is eating everything" even traditional employee roles in
organizations. People who can automate will always win, because they can do
more in less time.

I remember once when I was consulting, I was on the bench for a few days and
the marketing group contacted me to help aggregate and validate multiple lead
lists. They had been working on it for days, copy/pasting record after record
from multiple excel sheets into one big master sheet. They asked if I could
help.

I wrote some algorithms that matched records on several criteria and put them
into one big list. It took me a couple hours and I was done. Emailed them
later.

The marketing group emailed me back -- ecstatic! I saved them so much time,
they sent me all these promotional gifts meant to give to clients and
potential customers. A thermos I use to this day full of starbucks bucks that
I shared with my friends. I was king for a day.

These kinds of problems exist all over corporate america and now that
programmers have automated many of their daily tasks and accelerated them
where they haven't, they have more time to help more people within the
organizations that employ them. Their new tasks show their immense power to
people who normally think software is just something to get in the way of
their daily tasks, slowing them down, making life worse. Much software out
there is awful to use and built by engineers of the old days who were
overworked, underpaid relative to their contribution, and perhaps angry and
antagonistic toward coworkers.

There's a new breed out there and we are taking over! :)

~~~
b0rsuk
This sounds very uplifting, but when I worked at an enormous corporation
you've heard about we weren't allowed so much as to change my machine's
time&date. Forget about installing anything. And even when I was able to
improve anything (I got permission to install Python), there was a huge
bureaucracy and permission had to be granted for anything. Just because you
had an idea for improvement doesn't help if you have to mail a person on
another continent, who must understand what you're doing and grant permission.

It's not uncommon for company critical software to be written by a Russian guy
who no longer works there.

------
freshhawk
As software integrates into everything more deeply are we going to get
childish names for every profession?

Marketers are growth hackers, doctors will be health hackers, lawyers will be
justice hackers?

Then we can ensure that even when software is as fundamental to our society as
law or transportation or materials engineering there will still be a nice
sheen of hucksterism and bullshit on top.

Good job software people, keep ensuring that society as a whole will assume
that the software people need to always be underneath someone who is actually
a professional on the org chart.

Everyone here must be familiar with the "software is eating the world" meme.
That means that technical marketers are not growth hackers, they are good
marketers who are keeping up to date with what's needed to do their job.

~~~
nl
_That means that technical marketers are not growth hackers, they are good
marketers who are keeping up to date with what's needed to do their job._

But it's more than that. A growth _hacker_ invents _hacks_ as a way to grow -
clever, non obvious methods that drive adoption.

Things like the Reddit sockpupperts, the Dropbox two-sided incentive system or
the Yammer variation of the Freemium business model are all things where a
combination of technical AND commercial knowledge was the thing that drove the
companies success.

That isn't _technical marketing_ \- it is elements of business model design,
integration architecture and startup accounting.

If you think of a better name, excellent - but "technical marketer" undersells
what is happening here.

~~~
freshhawk
It's called marketing, those are just new techniques. The goals are still the
same, the things that work well are just changing a lot.

Remember the distinction a few years ago when marketers using the internet
were called Internet Marketers? How many people in marketing don't touch the
internet with any of their campaigns now? Now that's just called marketing.

It's perfectly fine to be interested in the new marketing techniques being
developed, especially if you're the HN crowd. That's not what I'm saying.

You aren't understanding marketing if you can't see that "growth hacker" is a
branding play. It's good to learn to recognize when marketing techniques are
being used to appeal to your demographic if you want to get any skill at using
it for yourself.

~~~
nl
_It's called marketing, those are just new techniques._

Yes, and what Mel did was just programming[1], and calling it hacking was just
rebranding by ESR to fit into his idea of what a hacker should be.

I stand by what I'm saying: You don't learn to reverse engineer Craigslist's
forms in marketing courses.

[1] <http://catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html>

~~~
freshhawk
There are no fields where the newest practical techniques are taught in
courses. Those are invented in the field and trickle down.

I'm not saying it's not impressive or not being done by the best marketers.
Not at all. I thought that was clear. There all talented people in every
profession, that's what people do.

I'm saying that it won't be called "growth hacking" in a short time and it
will go on the buzzword bingo card and will only be used ironically. And I
wish the community who read about these great marketers saw through the
pandering and childish "growth hacking" term as a (successful and well done)
branding attempt.

------
johnrob
While this post is very informative, it has the potential to be quite
dangerous. This type of marketing is like gasoline - it can take a small fire
and make it huge. You almost want to conclude that 99% of the fire was due to
the gasoline, but that isn't the case. Most of the critical work is getting
the initial fire. Once it starts burning, you 'earn' the ability to add
gasoline and see a big effect.

Long story short - don't try to growth hack until your product is ready. Every
shining example of engineered marketing begins with a product that already had
engaged users.

------
ggwicz
The last thing the tech world needs is people walking around calling
themselves "growth hackers".

Actually, the last thing the tech world needs is stuff like this, from the
article:

 _If a startup is pre-product/market fit, growth hackers can make sure
virality is embedded at the core of a product. After product/market fit, they
can help run up the score on what’s already working._

Stop making up "markets" and "niches", then making crappy products to try and
be "viral" in these areas, then calling yourself a "growth hacker" or
something as ridiculous and valueless.

Build something because you love it, not because a "growth hacker" determined
that it was a "pre-market fit".

~~~
freshhawk
This attitude annoys the creative person in me as well, who loves writing
software.

But you can't be mad at the business people moving in, optimizing the process
because they got into the business because they saw an opportunity to make
money.

I'm sure tv writers felt the same way about the first rise of infomercials and
televangelists. Hucksterism works and it's good capitalism. And it always
annoys the creative people who see themselves as artists or artisans.

~~~
ggwicz
You can definitely be mad at them.

If they're stupid and sacrificing the quality of the actual
art/software/website/thing, that's not good. It's easy to get mad at this.

And when there's _so many_ of these types of people doing so much damage and
causing so much waste, that's _really_ not good. It's very easy to get mad at
this.

~~~
freshhawk
True, I didn't phrase that well. It's easy to get mad at it but you are mad at
capitalism and human nature.

Since I have decided not to take these things on, I find it better to not get
mad at them but to remain detached.

I can constantly be angry about the hucksters and not do anything about it or
accept it as an inevitable outcome of the systems I live in and not do
anything about it. This doesn't mean I don't admire/support those who have
decided to attack these problems.

------
dictum
People who were around technology businesses in the 1990s, please illuminate
me: wasn't it common for pretentious managers to adopt fancy job titles? (I
may have read too much Dilbert.)

This is really just marketing with a better knowledge of the technical
possibilities. Do we really need a new job title?

~~~
spitfire
Yup. Back then it was "guru", "evangelist", and "ninja" (perl ninja, etc).

~~~
akshxy
Yes. People do resist change but it happens.

------
deepkut
Here at GraphMuse (invite engine for Facebook apps), we hadn't heard of a
"Growth Engineer" until we really looked into some of the people interested in
our product.

Turns out that Growth Engineers are actually respected "higher-ups." You said
it yourself too. That said, I think few people are familiar with this job
title outside of SV.

Was it Facebook who started this trend?

NOTE: I'd increase the line spacing on your blog, it's a bit tight.

~~~
akshxy
Yes it was Facebook who started the trend as early days of the Facebook
platform trained many of the best growth hackers in the Valley. 'Dan Yue' at
Playdom, 'Joe Greenstein' at Flixster, and 'David King' at (Lil) Green Patch
were a few Facebook pioneers. But, it was 'Sean Ellis' (Eventbrite, Dropbox,
Xobni, Catchfree) who Originally coined the term.

That's true hardly a few people are familiar with this job title outside SV. I
myself being a startup addict from India came across this title one night and
couldn't stop dreaming the very moment 'how to be a growth hacker*.

~~~
deepkut
I'd love to contact some of these people as "Growth" is the focus of what I'm
working on. Do you know any of these guys you're referencing?

Can I shoot you an email? Mine is tony at graphmuse.com

~~~
akshxy
Sure you can. Shoot me an email on akshay@sugardoctor.in

I am presently working for this company in reinventing their business model
for the scaling/ growing up of operation.

And yeah the guys I'm referencing, neither I know any of them nor they know
me.

------
why-el
I am a little confused by the wording of this. I usually think of a growth
hacker as somebody who helps scale an app, like an Instagram engineer for
instance. Is anybody else confused by the naming?

~~~
nrmehta
Good question. In the last few years, the term has been overloaded to talk
about a new engineering-like approach to marketing and user acquisition. But
the confusion is understandable. I personally think it's kind of cheesy but
whatever works for people :)

~~~
akshxy
Often confusion and anxiety is the best way to get early traction :)

------
nfm
Interesting post, but the title (and subject) is actually " Growth Hacker is
the new VP Marketing". The 'How' is absent.

~~~
jarek
Ah, the thing about marketing is that successfully calling yourself the new VP
Marketing is most of the battle for being the new VP Marketing.

------
orangethirty
The growth hacker has existed since the dawn of time. It is called being a top
sales person, and good sales people are worth twice their weight in gold.
Someone who can sell and can program is not a growth hacker, but a sales
engineer. Think about it...

~~~
natrius
Sales and marketing aren't the same. This is not sales. A growth hacker is a
marketing engineer, and I don't think that role has been prevalent until
recently. Counterexamples are welcome.

~~~
orangethirty
Yes, it has been around for a long time. Deal is that these people decide to
build a business for themselves and not others. Counterexample? Dan Kennedy is
a good and recent one (recent as in still alive). His partner, Bill Glazer, is
also a good example.

~~~
jfarmer
No, growth hacking is something new. Or rather: "growth hacking" is a term
people are using to describe a genuinely new phenomenon. You can trace this
phenomenon back maybe 10-12 years, but there is something interesting
happening -- interesting enough that people feel the need to coin a term to
describe it.

Andrew's example is a good one. AirBnb grew in part by piggy-backing off a
pre-existing platform (Craigslist) in a way that required skills in
copyediting, marketing, engineering, design, and psychology.

YouTube did similarly via MySpace. PayPay did similarly via email. Lots of
people, like Slide, Zynga, RockYou, and even LivingSocial did similarly via
Facebook.

There's something new happening here, and it's not coming from "top sales
people" or even "top marketers." It's coming from engineers who have decided
to approach marketing, customer acquisition, and distribution as an
engineering problem.

It's more than quantitative marketing or direct sales. The best growth hackers
have a STEM background. This thing, whatever it is, is "growth hacking."

~~~
jfarmer
It's not entirely new, no, but it's new like the iPhone was new. None of the
component ideas in the iPhone were 100% new, but it wasn't possible to build
one at a consumer price-point until certain preconditions, both technological
and economic, were met.

I'd claim this: marketing more than most disciplines lives or dies by the
state of communication technology. The best marketers in any generation know
how to use that technology to their advantage.

But communication technology is radically different today than it was even 20
years ago, let alone 120 years ago when PT Barnum was alive. For one, it's
more digital and more technological. It's also changing at an accelerating
pace. 10 years ago neither Facebook nor YouTube existed. 6 years ago Twitter
didn't. Tumblr, 5. Pinterest, 2. Instagram, 1.

Or, think of it this way (as a marketer might): the rate at which new
marketing channels are being created is accelerating. We're talking channels
that can potentially reach 1MM, 10MM, 100MM people sprouting afresh every
year. That's not the world PT Barnum lived in.

Why is is so crazy to think that this new environment results in a new breed
of marketer, more at home in bits and bytes than in creating hoaxes which
spread through poorly fact-checked newspapers and traditional marketing
"stunts?" And that therefore engineers -- the same people who are creating
these new channels -- are perhaps best adapted to this new environment?

It's also presumptuous to think that growth hackers -- and I'd include myself
in that lot -- aren't familiar with PT Barnum, David Ogilvy, Jack Trout, or
other famous marketers.

~~~
waterlesscloud
In a thread extolling the virtues of Reddit's early sockpuppets and AirBnB's
Craiglist games, it's a bit much to try to claim "growth hackers" are superior
to old-tymey hoaxes, whatever their facility with bits'n'bytes.

I'm not saying such approaches don't have their place, but you can't on the
one hand look down on similar tricks in the past and then on the other claim
that performing them in new channels somehow make them better.

Also, PT Barnum was much more than hoaxes. Seriously, read up a bit.

~~~
jfarmer
I didn't claim they're superior. I asked: "Why is it so crazy to think that
[growth hackers] are perhaps best adapted to this new environment?" Are fish
superior to dogs because they can stay underwater their whole lives?

I also never said PT Barnum was nothing more than hoaxes. Nor am I sure how
other people's commentary on Reddit and AirBnB's respective growth strategies
does anything but reinforce my point, viz., we live in a world where huge
marketing channels are being created every year and (for now) engineers rather
than traditional marketers are best suited for taking advantage of them.

Was it traditional marketers who planned and executed those strategies? Even
if they had planned it, could they have executed it?

At this point I'm not sure whether you're deliberately misunderstanding me,
but I've been as explicit as I know how. I'll have to leave it at that.

As for reading recommendations, I own both his autobiography and "The Art of
Money Getting." Is there something else you'd recommend?

~~~
waterlesscloud
If you've read those books, do you not see that he was taking advantage of the
way the world was changing in his time? That he was being quite creative in
finding new opportunities to reach people?

That's the entire point here. That taking advantage of new opportunities in
marketing is absolutely nothing new. It's what has _always_ been done.

Since we're going down the road where you question my sincerity (seriously,
does that ever work?), I'll also point out that you selectively quoted
yourself. The second half of the sentence, which is still right there in your
original post after all, very clearly has a tone that Mr. Bits'n'Bytes Growth
Hacker is superior to the oldster Hoaxer who spread through "poorly fact-
checked newspapers".

Come now, you have enough facility with language that you must know quite well
what you were doing there.

~~~
jfarmer
"Very clearly."

Well, ok. I don't think that: I've known growth hackers who have done
incredibly shady, unethical, and borderline illegal things. The Reddit and
AirBnB examples are probably a ~4 on a 1-10 scale of stunts growth hackers
pull.

I'm not sure what you're hoping to get by continuing, but I'm ready to stop.
Later!

------
petegrif
A lot of the comments, imho, don't seem to understand Andrew Chen's post and
are just fixating on some of the terminology. In fairness it would be easier
to do so had the reader of this post been a regular reader of his blog. It is
more readily understood in that context. I recommend reading his analysis of
how AirBnB went about hacking for growth. And there are some excellent posts
on growth hacking on Quora.

------
adamnemecek
This is kind of unrelated but has anyone bought this?
<http://www.appsumo.com/appsumo-growth-action-video> . I'd prefer not to spend
$80 to find out that it's full of cliches.

------
allardschip
I think meetup had the post to Craigslist a long time a go. Not sure if the
still do it.

------
theotherone
If this is something you'd like to do for twitter, and you have javascript,
rails, and/or java/scala chops, or you're just a damn good generalist engineer
who can pick up anything, send me an email at lzmfAuxjuufs/dpn.

~~~
lachyg
Just to confirm, you're looking for marketers with basic programming chops?

~~~
theotherone
We've historically had waaay more engineers than marketers on twitter's growth
team. We look at growth less as marketing and more about optimizing (through
ux, design, experiment, machine-learning, analytics, etc) all of our possible
distribution channels with respect to a set of core metrics.

We lean towards teaching good generalist programmers how to do "growth," which
actually doesn't feel much like marketing in day-to-day practice.

~~~
akshxy
I am yet to graduate as an engineer but I am damm good as a leader and
passionate about growth hacking this is what defines me.

I am learning rails, javascript these days and will be glad to get associated.

That was my first ever submission to the Hacker News. Sorry i didn't get, what
is that email??

~~~
true_religion
Take each letter he wrote and subtract one.

~~~
akshxy
Thank you :) It wasn't that difficult

------
prpx
If the "normal coder" on your startup isn't already a "growth hacker" you're
doing something wrong. Same goes for the rest of the team.

~~~
natrius
Specialization and division of labor are valuable practices, to an extent.

~~~
bitanarch
Problem: the term itself is already not specialized. While there's no doubt a
few people in the Valley actually know what it's about - for a startup,
anybody knowing how to do one or two of the things below can call himself a
"growth hacker":

\- UX \- A/B Tests \- BD \- PR \- "Virality" \- Facebook APIs ...

This is gonna be just like the SEO people of the past, but 10x worse.

