Growth Hacking Basics

GROWTH HACKING
Morgan Brown

ABOUT ME
•  12+ years of user acquisition, social and
product marketing for startups.

•  Grown companies from 0 – 100k+ users in
months 3 times.

•  Get geeked out about viral growth and
product-oriented hacks.

•  2nd time here at OCPM – hoping to earn a 3rd.

WHAT IS GROWTH HACKING?
•  A methodology that leverages strategies
aimed at unlocking growth at scale.

•  Growth by being smarter, not spending more,
than the other guy.

•  The practice of finding exponential upside to
marketing investment.

WHAT IS A GROWTH HACKER?
•  Hybrid skill set of marketing, product &
engineering.

•  Ability to optimize for user acquisition at
scale.

•  Ability to drive exponential growth from
efforts.

WHY GROWTH HACKING?
•  Traditional marketing and growth channels
are expensive and hyper-competitive.

•  Companies that are resource constrained
can’t compete effectively in crowded spaces.

•  It’s about creating an unfair advantage by
leveraging asymmetries in the market.

TENENTS OF GROWTH HACKING
•  OBSESS OVER DATA
–  Know your customer exceptionally well.
–  Measure everything.

•  CREATIVITY
–  Think different.
–  Push the limits.

•  CURIOSITY
–  Learn early, learn often.
–  Poke around.

•  DIRTY HANDS
–  Get in at the code & product level.
–  Make, launch and break stuff.

CATEGORIES OF GROWTH HACKS
•  Platform integrations

•  Viral Growth

•  Analytics

•  Grab bag

PLATFORM
INTEGRATION
Leveraging Super Networks

AIRBNB & CRAIGSLIST
•  Insight:
–  Craigslist is where people were looking for rooms to rent, short
& long term.
–  They could cross-post to Craigslist and tap a huge traffic
source.

•  Hack:
–  Even without an API the AirBnB team figured out a way to
hack the Craigslist submission process.

•  Result:
–  AirBnB drove more bookings (making customers happy) &
created new users at the same time.

AIRBNB & CRAIGSLIST

1.

2.

AIRBNB & CRAIGSLIST

3.

4.
Source: http://www.quora.com/Airbnb/How-does-Airbnb-automatically-post-on-Craigslist

BRANCH OUT & FACEBOOK
•  Insight:
–  People maintained a professional network on Facebook that was
often more engaged than on LinkedIn.
–  They could leverage the size of Facebook and its Open Graph
permissions to drive growth.

•  Hack:
–  One click invite send and account creation with Facebook
Connect.
–  Which friend would you rather work with mechanic.

•  Result:
–  Doubled size in a month. Went from 1MM to 10MM users in 3
months. Raised $24MM.
–  BranchOut mostly irrelevant now. Why?

BRANCH OUT DOUBLES IN 1 MONTH

http://www.quora.com/How-did-BranchOut-double-within-a-month

YOUTUBE & MYSPACE
•  Insight:
–  MySpace was where fans connected with musicians, but bands
couldn’t post video.
–  If YouTube could make it easy to share video on MySpace
they’d instantly scale.

•  Hack:
–  One click, Flash-based embeddable widget for video. Bands
and fans could finally watch and share music videos.
–  Which friend would you rather work with mechanic.

•  Result:
–  By 2006 YouTube’s reach grew past MySpace. The rest is
history.

TAKEAWAYS
•  Integrations should make both products
better

•  Study (and ask about) user behavior to
determine promising integrations

•  Test and discover valuable use cases

•  Measure conversions and revenue

VIRAL GROWTH
Leveraging Friend Networks

DROPBOX
•  Insight:
–  Traditional marketing wasn’t working. Were spending $300+ to
acquire customers for a $99 service.
–  Activating customers was the key to paying accounts.
–  Their asset had a very low marginal cost to give away.

•  Hack:
–  Giving away free space in exchange for word of mouth referrals.
–  Giving away free space in exchange for activation.

•  Result:
–  Users sent 2.8 million direct referral invites in April 2010.
–  In Sept. 2008 the service had 100,000 registered users.
–  In Jan 2010 (15 mos.) the service had 4,000,000.
–  No traditional ad spend.

http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-dos-donts-of-referral-invite-programs

DROPBOX MAKES INVITES FUN

http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-dos-donts-of-referral-invite-programs

LIVINGSOCIAL
•  Insight:
–  Building an audience can be outside of the core product
experience.
–  The cost of giving away a deal is shared by the merchant, giving
away deals cheaper than giving away cash.

•  Hack:
–  Building a purely viral Facebook app called Pick Your 5, and
growing virally until pivoting to daily deals.
–  A new twist on refer-a-friend with the 3-and-free dynamic.

•  Result:
–  10’s of millions of Facebook app installs
–  70MM users as of 11/12

TAKEAWAYS
•  Viral growth doesn’t exist for every product.

•  Viral growth comes from value being created
for the existing and new user.

•  Viral growth doesn’t have to come from your
core product.

•  So many people use refer-a-friend. A twist is
required to stand out.

DATA
Deep insights to drive growth.

AIRBNB
•  Insight:
–  Listings with better photos get more bookings.

•  Hack:
–  Hacked product and customer experience to drive professional
photos for listings.
–  Saw that listings with pro photos received 2-3x more bookings.

•  Result:
–  Went from 20 photographers in the field in 2011 to doing 5,000
shoots per month.
–  Traffic takes off.

Source: Analytics Lessons Learned

AIRBNB CRACKS THE PHOTO CODE

Photographers


CIRCLE OF MOMS
•  Insight:
–  Not all users are created equal.

•  Hack:
–  Discovered that moms on Circle of Friends were far more
active than other users:
–  Pivoted entire company from Circle of Friends to Circle of
Moms.

•  Result:
–  Grew from 2MM monthly active users to 4.5MM
–  Sold to Sugar Inc.


HOW MUCH BETTER WERE MOMS?
•  Their messages to one another were on average 50% longer.

•  They were 115% more likely to attach a picture to a post.

•  They were 110% more likely to engage in a threaded (i.e. deep)
conversation.

•  They had friends who, once invited, were 50% more likely to
become engaged users themselves.

•  They were 75% more likely to click on Facebook notifications.

•  They were 180% more likely to click on Facebook news feed items

•  They were 60% more likely to accept invitations to the app.


TWITTER
•  Insight:
–  It’s not how many Tweets you send. It’s how many people you
follow that determines success.
–  When users follow 5-10 people they are far more likely to
remain an active user.

•  Hack:
–  Drive product onboarding not around publishing or building an
audience, but following the right people.

•  Result:
–  40% of Twitter’s users use Twitter without publishing.
–  4x number of monthly visitors who don’t login, just read the
stream.

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/09/the-logged-out-user-continued.html

TWITTER’S TRY FIVE

Photographers

TAKEAWAYS
•  Sometimes growth doesn’t come from where you expect it.

•  Leverage data to identify unique insights and opportunities.

•  If you think you have a worthwhile idea, test it quickly and
with the least effort possible.

•  Have a game plan of what to do if the idea succeeds and
how to scale it.

•  Iterate the product to solve for that use case that drives
growth.

•  Engagement is the rocket fuel to give you escape velocity
and long-term sustainable growth.

PHYSICAL &
OTHER HACKS
Growth Hacking requires creativity.

HACK GRAB BAG
•  Embeds
–  YouTube, SlideShare, Vimeo
–  Keys are: remove friction, optimize for SEO

•  Powered By
–  Freemium with branding, CTAs & backlinks: MailChimp, UserVoice
–  Keys are: identify what you “power”, track and test CTAs

•  Free Stuff
–  Viral tools that play to vanity/exclusivity: Klout, Twitter Grader
–  Keys are: Identify value/desire, provide reward or currency

Source: Hiten Shah’s Growth Presentation (see notes)

WALL STREET JOURNAL
•  Insight:
–  Busy business people are constantly searching for ways to
connect to the Web.

•  Hack:
–  Offer free WiFi at popular spots across New York City.
–  Create email capture and activation funnel as part of
connecting to the Web.

•  Result:
–  Every user an opportunity to build their email marketing lists.

Source: GrowHack.com

DOLLAR SHAVE CLUB
•  Insight:
–  In a massive CPG category traditional advertising will never work,
you need to build a cult following.
–  The big players are actually terrible at branding and marketing.

•  Hack:
–  Upend the business model for razors.
–  Use viral video to acquire customers at low cost and create that
cult following.

•  Result:
–  DSC video viewed 5MM+ times
–  30,000 subscribers in first week
–  Raised $10MM to take on men’s category

ZAPPOS
•  Insight:
–  With items that are hard to shop for online, superior service, not
price, will win.
–  Removing friction from online shopping is more important than
price.

•  Hack:
–  Reinvent what customer service means.
–  Bake cost of incredible service into product, position as free.

•  Result:
–  World renowned brand built on service.
–  Charge a premium on every item sold.
–  $800 million exit to Amazon.

TAKEAWAYS
•  Growth Hacking isn’t just for consumer companies. B2B and
physical product manufacturers can hack growth.

•  Physical product hacks are harder, but not impossible. They
just require creativity and insight on how to reach users.

•  Hacks that make use of digital networks eliminate overhead
costs and find scale.

•  Same rules apply: creativity, data, curiosity, dirty hands.

BECOME A
GROWTH HACKER
Or at least a growth beginner.

YOU NEED A TEAM & A HYPOTHESIS
•  Create a growth team.
–  Marketer
–  Product person
–  Engineer
–  Sales

•  Create hypotheses about growth.
–  What changes do you think will move the needle?
–  What types of customers do you need to sustain growth?
–  What types of habits and behaviors do you need to engineer?
–  Map to customer decision making.

Source: Adam Nash http://blog.adamnash.com/2012/04/04/user-acquisition-viral-factor-basics/

GET DOWN IN THE DATA
•  Know your customers inside and out.

•  Go where your early adopters are.

•  Go niche first, the world second.
–  Hipsters
–  Moms
–  Geeks

•  Look for insights and patterns that represent
opportunities.

Source: Zero to a Million Users: http://www.slideshare.net/adamsmith1/from-zero-to-a-million-
users-dropbox-and-xobni-lessons-learned

ID HACKING OPPORTUNITIES
•  What platforms could I integrate into that would
bring instant scale?
–  Don’t depend on just one.
–  Don’t just think Facebook.

•  What are the core features of my product?

•  Which ones drive growth? How can I optimize
those?

•  How can I build distribution into inherent actions?

ID HACKING OPPORTUNITIES
•  What is the value to the user for reaching out to
non-users?

•  How does a hack align with my value proposition?

•  How does this hack improve the experience of
the user?

•  How can my product help others while gaining
distribution?

LEARN EARLY, LEARN OFTEN
•  Test and measure ideas on the cheap.

•  Build MVP versions, concierge versions.

•  What’s the easiest and fastest way to ship an
idea?

•  Numbers are your guide to everything.

•  Iterate like your life depends on it.

GIDDY UP!
•  Review product and marketing opportunities.

•  Build your team.

•  Read and learn.

•  Become a growth beginner.

•  Celebrate growth in your organization.

•  Make 2013 the year of growth!

DESIGNING FOR VIRAL GROWTH
•  Get the inside scoop on designing for viral growth with this
infographic from Digital Telepathy:

•  http://www.dtelepathy.com/blog/design/design-viral-
growth

GET IN TOUCH
Morgan Brown
morgan@digital-telepathy.com
@morganb

Digital Telepathy
www.dtelepathy.com
@dtelepathy

REFERENCES // RESOURCES
•  Taking your site from One to One Million Users – Kevin Rose
•  Hacking Growth at SlideShare
•  Growth – Hiten Shah
•  From Zero to One Million Users – DropBox and Xobni
Lessons – Adam Smith
•  Growth Hacking 101 – Your First 500,000 Users – Yong Fook
•  Lean Analytics – Alistair Croll & Benjamin Yoskovitz
•  Andrew Chen’s Blog

Growth Hacking Basics

More Related Content

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked (20)

Similar to Growth Hacking Basics (20)

More from Morgan Brown (16)

Recently uploaded (20)

Growth Hacking Basics

Editor's Notes