Growth hackers are engineers who build marketing ideas into products during development to drive growth. They hypothesize, test, and iterate products and campaigns. While marketing is one way to grow users, there are many non-marketing decisions that affect growth, like building viral features. Growth hacking should be a cross-functional role rather than within a single department. A 10-week roadmap is proposed to validate assumptions in small tests, do creative experiments, launch a beta, run targeted campaigns, and automate referrals and social sharing to sustain growth.

1. GROWTH “HACKING”
FROM ZERO TO 100K
Food for Thought from VPO Lab - Yuki Chow

2. Growth hackers are typically computer engineers that build great marketing ideas into the
product during the development process. Growth hackers are pros at hypothesizing, testing,
and iterating different version of their products (and promotional campaigns) to create
hockey stick growth for their companies.
Many consumer-facing products do not have the embedded virality, but growth could still be
achieved after the fact. A growth hacker is a hacker whose objective is to grow the number of
users for a specific product. While lots of people consider user growth to be a marketing
function, this assumes that there’s only one way to get users (namely, marketing). But this isn’t
true. In fact, more and more over the last few years we’ve seen new products grow from zero to
millions of users with little to no marketing at all.
There are lots of non-marketing decisions that affect user growth. Building viral product
features is the most obvious, but there are many others. As a result, it doesn’t make sense to
place growth hacking within a particular department like marketing or engineering. Instead, it
should be a cross-functional role.

3. SO, WHAT WOULD YOU DO
TO PROMOTE A BRAND NEW
CONSUMER FACING
PRODUCT?
Food for Thought from VPO Lab - Yuki Chow
Q::

4. Stage I - Validation
Validate product
assumptions via small-
size usability tests and
focus groups Stage II - Creative Warm Up
Tying the loose ends and
connect all the touch points
together. Cultivate innovative
channels
Ambiguous Structured
Stage III - Launch Beta
Tell the press about our
story and leverage
influencers’ network impact
Stage IV - Campaign
Organic search, contextual
ad, blogging, social
marketing, SEM. Test through
trial and error to determine
the cost efficiency ($10-$15k)
Stage V - Automation
Automate CRM and
strategically encourage
referral. Find a AHA moment
for the product!
10-WEEK PRODUCT MARKETING
ROADMAP
*Each stage is approximately 2-week long which should be aligned with
product sprint cycles. The lean start-up process (see next page) should
be reinforced so the actionable data and insights can be incorporated
into the product in a timely fashion.

5. THE LEAN METHODOLOGY

6. Intention: Products are built based on assumptions.
During the pre-launch phase, it’s essential to have a
non-biased person perform product analysis to
identify market fit and validate basic assumptions.
Goal: Collect insightful data to better position the
product and create marketing strategies
Tools: Google Analytics, Survey, Usability Tests
(10-15 users) in controlled environment
STAGE 1: VALIDATE ASSUMPTIONS

7. Set up tracking at all touch points so the team can
make data-informed decisions accordingly
Report both qualitative and quantitative findings,
especially the ones that go against previous bias or
existing institutional knowledge
Discuss potential road-blockers with the product team
and prioritize appropriate user stories
Form marketing hypothesis about who our audiences
are and how to win targeted early adopters
STAGE 1: OUTCOME

8. INDUSTRY IMMERSION
PRODUCT IMMERSION
STAGE 2: CREATIVE WARM-UP
CREATIVE EXPERIMENTS
Ask WHY not?
Test the NEW water

9. PRE-LAUNCH PREP IS
READY?
No major UX hiccups
Landing pages in place
Tracking in place

10. Negotiate a few event discounts as added incentives
PR effort: outreach to at least a dozen tech media
outlets and social network superstars who had
previously shown interests to PowerInbox
Implement half a dozen landing pages with different
flavors and introductions to facilitate the sign-up
Monitor drop rate and landing page performance
during the sign-up stage. Track, track, track!
Establish online brand presence for follow-up
conversations and relationship building
STAGE 3: BETA LAUNCH

11. Recruit over 2000 beta users
Clarify product value propositions
Familiarize with the language potential customers use
to articulate their needs and wants
Understand market feasibility and product perception
Simplify feedback loop and implement feasible
solutions
STAGE 2&3: OUTCOME

12. Leverage the learning from previous stages to design
suitable marketing campaigns
Try a number of tactics within a short time-frame and
then figure out what works best, what’s most effective
Build a bi-weekly budget allocation spreadsheet
Harness the partner relationships to acquire new
customers
Get out there in the tech news, Reddit, blogoshphere
STAGE 4: THINK, DEFINE, TEST

13. SUSTAINABLE GROWTH = CRM
AUTOMATION & SOCIAL SHARING

14. Add an auto-responder after the signup, modify the
instructional design languages so it’s more welcoming
If users left the engine in progress, remind them and
get their feedback. (e.g. e-commerce shopping carts)
If users choose to unsubscribe, try to hold on one more
time. (e.g. Groupon)
Provide strong incentives for social sharing (e.g.
Dropbox, LivingSocial)
STAGE 5: AHA! AUTOMATION

15. Net Promoter Score is the single best indicator of product/
service’s embedded virality. Set a benchmark from the
very beginning and persistently improve the NPS!
Oh, one more thing!

16. THANK
YOU!
VPO Lab
Yuki Chow
@sn0wfl8ke
9.10.13