When building a growth strategy for your startup, it’s important to quickly identify the right marketing channel(s) to focus on, having in mind your time and financial constraints. Based on the advice of successful founders and learnings from the "Marketing Hell Week“ by 500 Startups, Veronika Fischer will present some simple but powerful frameworks to design a sustainable growth strategy.

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Growth Marketing Fundamentals
500 Startups Approved
How to build a sustainable growth strategy
Veronika Fischer
Co-Founder & COO of Nuclino
veronika@nuclino.com
@Vero_Nika9

2. Outline
1 Background
2 Basic Growth Equation
3 Six-Step Process by Brian Balfour (VP of Growth at Hubspot)
4 Key Takeaways
5 Recommended Resources

3. The single best reason to start a startup?
“You can’t not do it.” (Dustin Moskovitz)
About Me
Study Background
Work Experience
LinkedIn: Veronika Fischer
Twitter: @Vero_Nika9

4. What
Your team’s
collective brain
How
Unifying
notes + tasks + docs
Why
Empower
Teams
About Nuclino
www.nuclino.com

5. Factors of Sustainable Growth
http://firstround.com/review/indispensable-growth-frameworks-from-my-years-at-facebook-twitter-and-wealthfront/
Use the right channels and people will come.
Build a great product and people will stay.

6. Process before tactics
What’s the single best tip, secret, hack… for growth?
What works for others won’t work for you.
Constant changes in acquisition channels make it hard to predict their success.
You need to develop a growth machine which is scalable, predictable, repeatable.
http://www.slideshare.net/500startups/02-brian-balfour-hub-spot-final
There is no sure formula or tactic.

7. Set OKRs
Objective
Qualitative Statement - Example: “Increase number of weekly active users”
Timeframe
30-90 days
Key Results
KR1: Measureable Goal 1 (hit 90% of time) - Example: + 10 % CR from signup to active
KR2: Measureable Goal 2 (hit 50% of time) - Example: - 15 % Churn rate of active users
KR3: Measureable Goal 3 (hit 10% of time) - Example: + 20 % Signup conversion
Once you know where you’re heading to, hit the road as fast as possible.
http://www.slideshare.net/500startups/02-brian-balfour-hub-spot-final

8. 6-Step Process
1. Brainstorm
(Backlog)
2. Prioritize
(Backlog +
Experiment Doc)
6. Systemize
(Playbooks)
5. Analyze
(Experiment Doc)
3. Test
(Experiment Doc)
4. Implement
Get sh*t done
Repeat
http://www.slideshare.net/500startups/02-brian-balfour-hub-spot-final

9. Process Step 1 - Brainstorm
1 Break down objective into pieces
2 Conduct structured brainstorming sessions
3 Create Experiment Backlog

10. Process Step 2 - Prioritize
1 Compare top ideas on 3 components
Probability: Low (20%) / medium (50%) / high (80%)
Impact: "If successful, [variable] will increase by [impact], because [assumptions]."
Resources: Time estimation for marketing / design / engineering
2 Justify your assumptions
Quantitative, Qualitative, Secondary
3 Create Experiment Doc

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Process Step 3 - Test
Design the experiment
What is the MVT (Minimum Viable Test)
to understand your hypothesis?

12. Process Step 4 - Implement

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Process Step 5 - Analyze
1 Results
What were the results of the experiment,
and what’s the variation to your hypothesis?
2 Learnings
What are the implications of the results?
3 Action Items
What are the logical next steps?

14. Process Step 6 - Systemize
1 Productize
Implement as much as you can with technology and engineering
2 Playbooks
For the things you can't productize, build them into step by step playbooks to make them
repeatable.

15. Key Takeaways
Core Product Value before Top of Funnel Actions
But both factors are important for sustainable growth.
Process before Tactics
Find your individual best tactics by setting up a repeatable and scalable growth machine.
Brainstorm - Plan - Test - Learn - Repeat
Try to constantly increase the quality and quantity of experiments in a given time period.

16. Recommended Resources
Startup School by Y Combinator
https://www.startupschool.org
Traction - G. Weinberg & J. Mares
http://tractionbook.com
Building a Growth Machine - Brian Balfour
http://www.slideshare.net/500startups/02-brian-balfour-hub-spot-final
The Innovator’s Solution - C. Christensen & M. Raynor
http://www.claytonchristensen.com/books/the-innovators-solution

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Thank You!
Veronika Fischer
Co-Founder & COO of Nuclino
veronika@nuclino.com
@Vero_Nika9
Questions? Feedback?