Growth Unhacking - Oversimplified Lessons from Growing Things By Effi Fuks-Leichtag, Group Product Manager at Yelp Growth hacking has become such a popular practice adopted by many startups and bigger brands alike. However, misunderstanding and less-than-optimal practices are also prevalent. Join Effi, Group Manager from Yelp, as he dissects the key elements in growth to "Unhack" the process.

1. Growth Unhacking
Oversimplified lessons from
growing things
Effi Fuks-Leichtag
Group Manager
@EffiFuks

2. Hi
I grow stuff for a living
Babies Plants Belly

3. Hi
I grow stuff for a living
Babies Plants Belly

4. Hi
I grow stuff for a living
Babies Plants Belly

5. Hi
I grow stuff for a living
Babies Plants Belly

6. “Increase the units of something affecting your core
business in a cost-effective manner over time”
Users Claimed businesses
Advertisers Drivers Photos created
Quote request
Units Sold
Rooms booked
Signups App downloads
MAU Ad opportunities
Sessions

7. “Increase the units of something affecting your core
business in a cost-effective manner over time”
(me)
Users Claimed businesses
Advertisers Drivers Photos created
Quote request
Units Sold
Rooms booked
Signups App downloads
MAU Ad opportunities
Sessions

8. Which growth plan is better?
Time Time
unitsofthethingyouneedtogrow
unitsofthethingyouneedtogrow
A B

9. Which growth plan is better for Q1?
Time Time
unitsofthethingyouneedtogrow
unitsofthethingyouneedtogrow
A B
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

10. Which plan is better with 50% actual drag?
Time Time
unitsofthethingyouneedtogrow
unitsofthethingyouneedtogrow
A B
Planned
Actual
Actual
Planned
A B

11. New idea B is born after Q1
Time Time
unitsofthethingyouneedtogrow
unitsofthethingyouneedtogrow
A B
Planned
Actual
Actual
Planned
A B

12. Q2 actuals with 50% drag
Time Time
unitsofthethingyouneedtogrow
unitsofthethingyouneedtogrow
A B

13. Q3 planning
Time Time
unitsofthethingyouneedtogrow
unitsofthethingyouneedtogrow
A B

14. Which growth strategy over time?
Time Time
unitsofthethingyouneedtogrow
unitsofthethingyouneedtogrow
A B

15. “Increase the units of something affecting your core
business in a cost-effective manner over time”
Users Claimed businesses
Advertisers Drivers Photos created
Quote request
Units Sold
Rooms booked
Signups App downloads
MAU Ad opportunities
Sessions

16. Growth is mainly about time
● Wall Street, your investors, your managers, and your team don’t
have time. All of them age at the same rate
● “Diversification of growth investments”
○ Short-term investment drives action and motivation to get to
the long-term bet
○ Long-term is your big bet path to innovation
● These protect you from a sleeping giant or under-the-radar
maverick

17. 2 Types of growth projects
Bread and Butter
50% chance to get a 5% lift in your metric
Takes a short amount of time for a small
amount of people to get out the door
Easier to test lean
Silver bullet
5% chance to get a 50% lift in your metric
Takes a lot of people a lot of time to get out
the door
Harder to test lean

18. What is Request a Quote?
Allows consumers to request quotes from claimed businesses

19. “Originating” vs. “Bulk Quotes”
We pre-select 3 additional businesses to forward the original quote
Bulk quotes

20. RaQ Project Growth Tactics

21. RaQ Project Growth Tactics

22. RaQ Project Growth Tactics

23. How to Shoot a Silver Bullet
PLAN / LEARN
1. Spend a quarter to find your next silver bullet.
2. State of mind: “This MUST succeed / I’m taking a mortgage”
3. Do you think it’s a groundbreaking idea? If so, create a
“pitch” deck:
1. Run it through a devil’s advocate / your team / your
managers / your peers / your significant other / users
to tell you why you are wrong. Iterate your plan
constantly
2. Survey your market, run user studies
3. If possible, test the water (lightweight experiment)
4. Think about your roadmap to fulfill your vision
5. Scope your MVP. Your MVP must succeed, if not,
why?
6. Get allocated people, an organic team is better than
mixed team.
BUILD
1. Be obsessed with milestones and timing.
2. Be obsessed with metrics setup.
LAUNCH
1. Internal launch, friendly lunch, then scale as your learn.
2. GOTO 1

24. How to Plan a Bread and Butter
Plan
Spend less than an hour on an idea.
State of mind: “F*** it, Ship it. Ship it fast. ”
Someone raises an idea to grow.
It’s not dumb.
It’s not too hard to build.
Build
Make sure the list of the ideas are sorted by some sort of logic
(impact * cost * motivation to build).
Weekly planning, picking up stuff from the list, go from the
top.
Eng motivation beats reason (they are usually aligned).
Simple metrics, fast to learn.
Launch
Big and fast releases ( >33% test groups) quick learning.
If it doesn’t work, kill it.
If it works, iterate to make it better.

25. How do I strategize resources?
Mindset: Always be growing.
Optimize easy-to-measure over hard-to-measure, even if not totally accurate.
Don't allow yourself to be pulled into the shine of a sexy silver bullet.
In normal days, 30%-70% of your resources (eng weeks / money/ budget) should do Bread and
Butter.
100% of work on a silver bullet is an option, but set expectations with your team and managers
that you may have no growth for a period of time.

26. ?

27. Total Number of McDonald’s Locations

28. Total Number of McDonald’s Locations
?

29. Total Number of McDonald’s Locations
The big international scale starting

30. Total Number of McDonald’s Locations
The big international scale starting
The international experimentation began

31. Growth = Persistence
“ Now, I know what you're thinkin'. How the hell does a 52
year old, over-the-hill milkshake machine salesman build
a fast food empire with 16,000 restaurants, in 50 states,
in 5 foreign countries... with an annual revenue of in the
neighborhood of $700,000,000.00... One word...
PERSISTENCE. Nothing in this world can take the place
of good old persistence. Talent won't. Nothing's more
common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius
won't. Unrecognized genius is practically a cliché.
Education won't. The world is full of educated fools.
Persistence and determination alone are all powerful. ”
[Epilogue, The Founder Movie 2015]

32. @EffiFuks
#branchout17
Questions
Submit your questions via sli.do
Enter code Branchout2017