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Jas P

You're a Growth Rookie, not a Growth Hacker. | Vlaskovits - 0 views

  • 1) A Growth Hacker, like a “visionary”, is only anointed with the sacred oil of growth hacking ex post facto. Once, you have delivered huge and exponential growth in users/leads/sales, you are a Growth Hacker.  Before that, you are a Growth Rookie. <— ain’t nuthin’ wrong with being a Growth Rookie.
  • Growth hacking comes after the early stage chaos and post-product-market-fit.
  • This bears belaboring: growth-hacking comes after most, if not, all elements of your business model have already been figured out and shown to work — especially, the paramount elements of your market segment (who), your value prop (what) and marketing channels (how).
Jas P

Defining A Growth Hacker: Growth Is Not A Marketing Strategy | TechCrunch - 0 views

  • “Growth teams are constantly iterating and developing new concepts,” said Dan Martell, founder of Clarity.
  • This process can be an unnecessary distraction to core product development. This is why it is best for an autonomous team to test and focus on growth.” Growth teams and growth hackers are in a perpetual state of “work-in-progress,” which can slow core product momentum with its mindset of iteration and testing.
  • “Ideally, a growth hacker can single-handedly put in a bunch of changes, such as A/B tests for copy and buttons,” said Mike Greenfield, 500 Startups Growth Hacker-In-Residence and co-founder of Circle of Moms. “One person with both technical and marketing skills can reduce friction and facilitate rapid iteration. Growth success comes from a lot of this background work.”
Jas P

Pinterest Growth Hacks: How did it grow so fast? « Adam Breckler - 0 views

  • Growth Hack #1: Insta-follow Upon signing up for Pinterest you are automatically following a select group of high quality users. This in turn helps alleviate the cold-start problem, where I have to go looking around the site to find boards and people to follow. Instead I get a sampling of high quality content immediately filling my feed.
  • Growth Hack #2: Facebook Friend Follow When you sign up for Pinterest with Facebook, your friends who are already using Pinterest auto-follow you and you follow them back. But all this auto following doesn’t seem to happen all at once but is staggered over time so that you get periodic notifications that someone has just started following you on PInterest. This brings you back to the app again and again. This also helps alleviate the cold-start problem and gives me a social incentive to maintain my presence on the site, lest I look boring in front of my friends.
Jas P

Growth hacking: leading indicators of engaged users - 0 views

  • One of the themes that came up a lot was the idea of the growth team finding a leading indicator of a user who would turn into an engaged user later on. The growth team would then focus on optimizing for that metric. 
  • Characteristics of leading indicator metrics The various leading indicators fit into three categories: Network density: friend or following connections made in a time frame Content added: files added to a Dropbox folder Visit frequency: D1 retention
  • Other points from the speakers A few other interesting things were mentioned at the conference. Josh Elman mentioned that Twitter has two degrees of an active user: a plain “active user” is someone who has visited their timeline at least once in the last 28 days a ‘retained’ or ‘core’ user is someone who has visited their timeline at least 7 times in 28 days.
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  • Chamath said that, when he was running the growth team at Facebook, he focused on four things: Acquisition: how to acquire users. Activation: how to get users to their ‘Aha’ moment as quickly as possible Engagement: how to ensure users experience the core product value as often as possible Virality: how to get people to get more people onto the platform
  • He said there had been a tendency in growth teams he was aware of to measure the time to the “Aha” moment in days. His view is that it should be measured in hours, and ideally minutes and seconds. The idea is that a user should get an “Aha” moment as soon as humanly possible after signing up.
Jas P

Sean Ellis on creating a sustainable growth program via Sandi MacPherson - QUIBB - 0 views

  • Behind the term 'growth hacking'The concept for growth hacking grew out of the fact that most startups fail, and needing to not fail. When you think about games, the market is filled with large companies with lots of money to throw into marketing. Sean summed this need up well, with: When you're competing against Sony, you can't go dollar for dollar
  • 2. A Must-Have Experience Sean focused on the importance of a Must-Have Experience (MHX) - you must have a hook that clearly identifies what this is.
  • 3. Uncovering your MHXTo get a clear understanding of what your MHX is, Sean suggested reaching out to your Must Have Users (MHUs)… but what is a MHU?
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  • Sean likes using a pop-up or other survey tool to ask people 'How disappointed would you be if [your product] wasn't available anymore?' on a scale ranging from 'not at all disappointed' to 'extremely disappointed' to identify your MHUs (they'll answer very or extremely disappointed).
  • You can ask these identified MHUs 'What is the primary benefit you receive from [your product]' (as an open-ended question to start, then after getting ~30 responses, you should be able to narrow it down to 3 multiple choice answers).
  • 4. Getting people to your MHXOnce you understand your MHX, you can then maximize the percentage of people that reach this point. This means identifying points of friction and reducing that friction (Sean suggested watching people use your product, and then A/B testing based on insights gained), focus on what a real conversion looks like, building channels to increase user habits/increase revenues/drive sales/etc., and understand intent by A/B testing your messaging and hooks. You need to obsessively optimize everything that is part of this newly formed growth engine.
  • You need to engage with your users, and take those insights to come up with new, breakthrough ideas.
Jas P

Kyro Beshay: Hacking Behavior: The Behavior Potential - 0 views

  • One of the most popular theories on the phases of behavior change is known as the Transtheoretical Model. It outlines five phases that lead to an alteration in one’s behavior: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. Here is a quick overview of each phase: Precontemplation: Individual is unaware that their behavior is a problem. Contemplation: Individual is aware that their behavior is an issue and is ambivalent as to whether action should be taken. Preparation: Individual plans to take action in the near future – a “window of opportunity” has opened. Action: Individual has made specific overt modifications to their lifestyle. Maintenance & Relapse Prevention: Individual take steps to avoid factors that increase the risk of relapse.
  • The Behavior Potential illustrates the common cycle of awareness, motivation, action and frustration we often experience when trying to change our ways, with each spike representing a single attempt. The goal is to manipulate the phases of the Behavior Potential so that:
  • Phase 0: Precontemplation – Get Views During this phase, no one has seen your product, and so the goal is to get it in front of people, which is where Growth Hacking comes into play.
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  • Phase 1: Contemplation & Preparation – Present The Problem & Solution So you’ve finally found someone to look at your product. Now your goal is to convince them they have a horrific problem and that you have a remarkable solution. This is something I see less and less. Startups will often litter their landing pages with all the great features they’ve developed, which gains them absolutely nothing if they’ve not yet convinced the viewer there’s actually something in their life that could be improved. To do this, there are 4 basic principles: Describe the problem in your viewer’s terms. Walk through examples of life with and without the problem. Outline a plan of attack. Socially validate the legitimacy of the problem with user feedback. Individuals in these stages are often ambivalent as to whether they should actually put forth effort into changing. Individuals in this stage go back and forth between reasons for concern, and justification for lack of it, with awareness of the pros for changing and an acute awareness of the cons. Show them that the benefits of switching outweigh the costs.
  • Phase 2: Action & Maintenance – Reward, Reward, Reward You’ve convinced someone to start using your product, and now you want to ensure that they’ll keep using it. The way we lengthen Phase 2, or sustain a behavioral change, is by simultaneously reinforcing the behavior while recognizing the situations which create an increased risk of relapse.
  • Reinforcement strengthens behavior – a core component of operant conditioning. There are two types of reinforcement: positive and negative. Positive reinforcement is the introduction of a positive stimulus, while negative reinforcement is the removal of a negative stimulus. An example of positive reinforcement is a mother laughing at her child’s joke, positively reinforcing that particular behavior, and likely resulting in her hearing that joke a lot more often.
  • Phase 3: Relapse – Your Rewards Aren’t Rewarding Relapse prevention involves recognizing the factors that may lead to one reverting back to their old habits, so if you find your users becoming disengaged, then there is likely a flaw in your reinforcement mechanism. The user finds it easier to not use your product. You may have convinced them that your solution is better in theory, but in practice it isn’t. To prevent relapse, constantly measure user engagement and adjust your reinforcers accordingly. Work towards bridging the gap between what you’re selling and what your users are experiencing.
Jas P

What does a growth team work on day-to-day? | @andrewchen - 0 views

  • But first, you need a great product Let me note that if people aren’t using your product, then you’re wasting your time spending too much time optimizing growth. You need a base of users who are happy and then your job is to scale it.
  • Planning and model building The planning/modeling side of things is really about understanding, “Why does growth happen?” Every product is different. You might find that people find you via SEO and then turn into users that are retained via emails You might find that people come to your site via web and then cross-pollinate to mobile, and that’s the key to your growth. You might find you need to get them to follow a certain # of people. You might realize they need to clip a certain # of links to get started.
  • Summary To summarize the above: Have a solid product where your users are happy Coming up with a model for how your site grows Trying out ideas and deploying them as A/B tests If the site grows, then try out more ideas. If it doesn’t, rethink the model in step 1 because it might be broken
Jas P

Mailgun Blog - Growth Hacking, Email and Mullets - 0 views

  • There is a fascinating chart published in a Wired Article about a program called “SuperMemo” created by Piotr Wozniak to help people remember things. The chart shows the importance of irregular reminders on the ability of the human brain to retain information.
Jas P

Why Growth Hackers are Taking Over Startup Marketing | @Technori - 0 views

  • Growth hackers are creative, constantly on the lookout for ways to increase acquisition, adoption, retention, revenue, and referral. They are disciplined, subjecting themselves to an empirical process to determine what works and what doesn’t. They understand that the product itself is the most effective marketing tool. And they are technical enough to leverage existing platforms to reach the billions of users at their fingertips.
Jas P

How To Turn Your Customers Into Marketers - 0 views

  • So instead of launching a multi-million dollar ad campaign to bring in people, my gym implemented a growth hack. They turned customers into marketers by incentivizing them to bring in a friend. Then the friend possibly could become a member. The math works out for them as well. Let’s break it down: T-shirts ($3 each) x 2 = $6 Complimentary lunch = $0 A total of 100 members bring in a friend. The total cost of the promotion — $600. The result is that 3% of the 100 members convert their friends to members at $55 per month for each membership. The total ROI in the first month — $165/$600.
  • The promotional cost for each customer is very cheap. The t-shirt probably cost a few dollars, and the complimentary lunch probably was a gift certificate to a local restaurant that cost the gym $0.
  • Everything we’ll be discussing has one thing in common — incentives. Economists almost universally agree that people respond to them. Businesses should give their current and prospective customers an incentive to act on their offer. It has to benefit both parties or it won’t be nearly as effective. Not all the incentives are monetary, as we’ll see.
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  • Refer a Friend One of the most common ways businesses spread their product and increase their viral coefficient (how many customers your current customers bring in) is through the use of referrals.
  • Contests Contests help users get energetic about your brand and the thought of winning something. If you’re creative enough with your contest design, it can also get you some PR. Dropbox has gained significant PR by having their annual “Dropquest” contest. Just Google Dropquest and you’ll see all the articles written about it. As a simple contest idea, a business can encourage users to tweet a pre-set message. This message can be about a recent feature. At random, the business can pick a person who tweeted out the message. Be creative and offer a big-time prize. You may get some PR and customers to boot. Avoid giving out a prize that’s unrelated to your business. Instead of giving them a car or a television, give them an upgrade.
  • If you’re a Netflix customer, you’ve probably noticed their promotional ads that come with the envelope the DVD’s are sent in. Many of them encourage you to give Netflix to a friend as a gift. According to Netflix, 75% of their customers come from these recommendations.
  • If you run a SaaS company, put a Like or Tweet button next to new feature announcements. You might be able to take advantage of user excitement and get them to share it with friends and followers. If your business has a blog, attach the Like and Tweet buttons next to every post. All of these social media buttons help get your product in front of more eyeballs and more prospective customers.
  • If I give this card to a friend, they receive a 25% discount. By spreading these products, I’m helping my friends by giving them a discount.
  • Your customers likely know a lot of people who are like them. This is especially true if you’re a SaaS company.
  • a customer could give a friend a trial of your product. So the friend receives the trial, and the customer gets some sort of discount or offer.
Jas P

Distribution Hacks - 0 views

  • “Hi Elle, what’s the angle?”
  • “Arbitrage on parsing shipping data,” I reply. “Well, everyone has an angle.”
  • My Dad explained that hedge funds are truly a dime-a-dozen in the finance world, not dissimilar from angel investors.
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  • Then he said the thing that was THE THING: You can do a hedge fund anytime, why do it now? Well thanks Dad, for the vote of confidence (more like “holy fuck you think I could raise hundreds of millions of dollars in this economy!?”), but what do I do with that?
  • He continued to explain that creating a hedge fund, or any kind of fund, was something i should be thinking about in my 40s or 50s when I wanted a more traditional role in finance with a lower risk/reward profile.
  • My family is upper middle class, but as service providers to the very wealthy I’ve learned some valuable things about money, at a much younger age than I otherwise would.
  • It has changed how I approach people with money, for better or for worse. I expect this will have an interesting impact on my ability to raise funding for my company (and I’m not saying all positive here):
  • “Yes but what do we sell?”
  • “We sell trust, honey,” he smiles. “We’re honest people just like the steel workers, union laborers, and employees these companies serve. We help them keep their promises.”
  • A series of deaths in my family in the past couple years have made me more aware of mortality than I ever was before. My Dad pointed out, as we discussed the hedge fund business, that it was something I could do without actually leaving a chair. Move to New York, get a Blackberry, iPhone and 3-line desk phone and I could operate from anywhere.
  • But I would never be able to recapture, at 50, the energy of being 25. My Dad had me when he was 28. To him, I am so early in my life (I’m 27 now… this post reflects on a convo 2 years ago).
  • Staring down Demo Day, I hold this conversation in my mind. Have some balls, Elle. I’m pretty sure that’s what he was trying to say.
Jas P

The $100,000 Experiment - The Accelerators - WSJ - 0 views

  • I was once on the board of a company that was cash-flow positive early in its life. The entrepreneur decided to raise more money, even though he didn’t need to. I was perplexed and asked him why he was raising the amount of money he had decided to raise. His answer was that when he had no cash in the bank, he was willing to run $1,000 experiments. When the company was cash-flow positive, he was comfortable running $10,000 experiments. He now wanted to feel comfortable running $100,000 experiments, and this financing enabled him to do this. If he ran a $100,000 experiment and it failed, it wouldn’t tank the business.
  • When an experiment works, do more of it. So the $10,000 experiment that pays for itself in three days by generating $4,000 of gross margin on a daily basis is worth doubling down on and running at the $20,000 level. If this generates $8,000 of gross margin on a daily basis, double down again.
Jas P

A Public Service Announcement for Tony Hsieh. - 0 views

  • We posted it around the web (HN, Reddit, FB etc), and it quickly rose to the front page of HN where it stayed for about a half hour, before getting crushed by the mods.
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