
Time to Call BS on the Cult of Growth Hacking - kevin_morrill
http://joelandren.com/2013/09/05/its-time-to-call-bs-on-the-cult-of-growth-hacking/
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manishsharan
I recently bought this book "Growth Hacking - A How To Guide On Becoming A
Growth Hacker" By Jose Casanova and Joe Casanova. I am on chapter 5 and it
reads like the same blogpost repeated over and over. Unlike the MVP/ Lean
Start-up phenomenon/movement which has scholarly work done to validate the
idea and a distinct methodology , growth hacking blogs seem just buzzword
centric babble.

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hvass
I don't understand what you mean that 'growth hacking' doesn't have a distinct
methodology, since unlike traditional marketing it is very quant-based and the
way I see it, it evolves from MVP/Lean to get PMF and than getting traction in
a very analytical way where you can quickly see which channels are driving
growth and which are not. It is very incremental unlike the traditional
marketing's "big bang" approach to launching.

Also, I consider A/B and multivariate testing for conversions a huge part of
growth hacking and they are obviously based on scholarly work. When you
ruthlessly track and optimize, you need to have the statistical chops to do it
properly.

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bryant__d
Growth hacking is nothing new. It's just marketing folks re-branding
themselves. It's the exact same product marketed under a new name with a new
brand image and targeted at the tech audience.

It seems to have worked. Every startup now wants to hire a "growth hacker"
instead of a CMO. And developers now ascribe more value to marketing than
before.

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ignostic
I completely agree with you - I commented something similar before I saw this.
Let me play the devil's advocate, though. Couldn't you argue that "growth
hacking" has a lot in common with "agile programming"? Neither is promoting
entirely new methodology - they're just built on existing best practices with
a new image and name.

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ignostic
Effective marketing often relies on either finding new mediums to reach an
audience or presenting the message in a a new way. Oh, and it's easier to make
marketing more effective when you can measure, test, improve, and iterate.

I don't really care whether growth hacking represents a new discipline or
methodology, but it's easy to claim the superiority of your discipline when
you include two common paths to success as part of the definition. Calling
yourself a "growth hacker" seems a lot like calling yourself a "football
winner" rather than a "football player."

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lukethomas
What I find sad about this "growth hacking" phenomenon is how the focus is on
a single specific tactic, as if that is the key to all growth-related
problems.

On top of that, growth hacking is used a vehicle for self-promotion, as if one
person is responsible for success. It's honestly a team effort, and to pretend
like it's one person is a shame.

Lastly, isn't "growth" for the sake of growth a vanity metric? Personally, I'd
want someone who knows how to retain users and prevent churn over someone who
spams his way to millions of users. Just my thoughts.

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joelandren
Amen.

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nonchalance
What is Growth Hacking? The author should have defined it ...

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ignostic
He did link straight to a definition.

[http://www.aginnt.com/growth-hacker](http://www.aginnt.com/growth-hacker)

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jasonlotito
After the parent comment was made.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6335252](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6335252)

Of course, the link still doesn't answer the question.

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bennesvig
Growth Hacking is essentially thinking of the role of a marketer as someone
who is a chef instead of a waiter, which marketers have been traditionally.

Good marketing is generally baked into the product/service itself. In the
traditional model, a company would make something and then think about
marketing. While the marketer might have ideas to make the product better,
generally all they can do is create a better presentation for what is already
made.

The concept of growth hacking isn't anything new, as many companies have
included marketing in the product creation. The only change is that analytics
are becoming better and the cost of tweaking a product or service once it's in
the market is decreasing.

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etler
I think it's the same as SEO. There are legitimate SEO practices and then
there are scammy trendy sounding ones. The legitimate techniques typically
involve a lot of systematic testing and hard work. The scammy ones throw buzz
words around and have little to back them up.

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xpop2027
growthhackingguide.com

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andyl
Before Growth Hacking, marketing people did PR, Partnership, Trade Shows, Ad
Campaigns, etc. Yukk.

To me, Growth Hacking is a measurable engineering exercise. Data-driven and
scalable - way better than marketing days of old.

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snowwrestler
Do people really believe that companies would spend millions of dollars on PR,
trade shows, ad campaigns, etc. and not carefully measure their return?

Sure, measurement before the Internet involved social science instrumentation
rather than log analysis; but that does not mean it was not careful, rigorous,
and even cutting edge for its time.

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bennesvig
Yes.

There are lots and lots of people who don't want precise analytics.

Why don't some people want precise analytics? Because if you aren't sure if
something worked, then you can't be at fault for it not working.

Measuring closely what works and what doesn't is of course better, but there
are plenty of people who are scared about losing their jobs who would prefer
not to track.

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snowwrestler
Ok, but those people would not be interested in "growth hacking" either, then.
And there are other people who _do_ want accurate analytics.

My objection is to the idea that growth hackers are the first people who have
ever tried to use data to drive marketing decisions. They aren't.

