1. with Mattan Griffel, CEO of One Month / @mattangriffel
GROWTH HACKING:
How Startups Grow From
0 To Millions Of Users
Prepared for

2. PS: I LOVE YOU.
GET YOUR FREE E-MAIL AT…

3. In 1996 co-workers Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith
planned to start a company called JavaSoft

4. BUT THEY WERE AFRAID THEIR
BOSS WOULD CATCH THEM

5. SO THEY BUILT A
WEB-BASED EMAIL SYSTEM

6. AND SO HOTMAIL
WAS BORN

7. THEY
RAISED
$300,000

8. But Hotmail’s Launch
Was Unimpressive
July August

9. Their growth strategy was to buy
billboards and radio ads

10. BUT SOMEONE
HAD A BETTER IDEA

11. PUT ‘PS: I LOVE YOU. GET
YOUR FREE E-MAIL AT
HOTMAIL’ AT THE BOTTOM
OF EACH E-MAIL.

12. Within Hours, Hotmail’s Growth
Took The Shape Of A Classic
Hockey Stick Curve
July August

13. THEY STARTED AVERAGING
3,000 NEW USERS A DAY
July August

14. WITHIN 6 MONTHS, THEY WERE
UP TO 1 MILLION USERS
July September November

15. July September November January
FIVE WEEKS LATER, THEY HIT
THE 2 MILLION USER MARK

16. IN ONE CASE,
BHATIA SENT
ONE EMAIL TO
A FRIEND IN INDIA

17. WITHIN 3 WEEKS
HOTMAIL HAD
300,000 USERS
IN INDIA

18. July September November January March May July September November
WHEN THEY SOLD TO MICROSOFT 1.5 YEARS AFTER
LAUNCH, HOTMAIL HAD 8.5 MILLION USERS

19. July September November January March May July September November
(There were only 70 million internet users at the time)
WHEN THEY SOLD TO MICROSOFT 1.5 YEARS AFTER
LAUNCH, HOTMAIL HAD 8.5 MILLION USERS

20. THIS STORY
IS NOT AN ANOMALY

27. WHY DID THESE COMPANIES
SUCCEED WHEN EVERYONE
ELSE FAILED?

28. SO WHAT IS
GROWTH HACKING?

29. IN 2010, SEAN ELLIS COINED
THE TERM “GROWTH HACKER”

30. A GROWTH HACKER IS
A PERSON WHOSE TRUE
NORTH IS GROWTH.
“
– SEAN ELLIS, Startup Marketing Blog

31. IN 2012 ANDREW CHEN
PUBLISHED THE BLOG
POST:
"GROWTH HACKER IS
THE NEW VP MARKETING”

32. IN IT, HE REVERSE-ENGINEERS
AN AIRBNB “POST TO CRAIGSLIST” FEATURE

33. “
– ANDREW CHEN, andrewchen.co
GROWTH HACKERS ARE
A HYBRID OF MARKETER
AND CODER.

38. GROWTH HACKING IS A
SET OF TACTICS AND BEST
PRACTICES FOR DEALING
WITH USER GROWTH

39. How do I get more users?
GROWTH HACKING IS A
SET OF TACTICS AND BEST
PRACTICES FOR DEALING
WITH USER GROWTH

40. How do I get more of my users to be active?
How do I reduce churn?
How do I increase the lifetime value of a user?
How do I measure the effectiveness of new features?
What is our AHA moment?
How do I get more users?
GROWTH HACKING IS A
SET OF TACTICS AND BEST
PRACTICES FOR DEALING
WITH USER GROWTH

42. Viral Growth

43. ANALYTICS
Landing Page Optimization Copywriting
SEO
Email Marketing
PR Behavioral Economics
Referral
Advertising
Viral Growth

44. People want to see growth like this

45. (This was One Month at Y Combinator Demo Day)

46. But in reality it looks more like this

47. Growth will be rocky at first

48. Over time, trends become more apparent

49. And variability stabilizes in the long-run

50. THE STARTUP CURVE
TechCrunch
of Initiation
Wearing Off
of Novelty
Trough of
Sorrow
Releases of
Improvement
Crash of
Ineptitude
Wiggles of
False Hope
The Promised
Land!

51. #GODEEPER

52. MOST COMPANIES
ONLY TRACK
THREE THINGS
TRAFFIC
USERS
REVENUE

54. ? ?
GET TRAFFIC GET USERS PROFIT
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3 PHASE 4 PHASE 5

55. THOSE METRICS
AREN’T VERY HELPFUL!

56. (The magic is what happens in between)
THOSE METRICS
AREN’T VERY HELPFUL!

57. THE KEY IS TO MAP OUT THE USER
LIFECYCLE FOR YOUR PRODUCT

58. THE LEAN
MARKETING
FUNNEL
SEO PR
EMAIL
VIRALBLOGS
SEM
CONTESTS
PARTNERSHIPS
Referral

59. SEO PR
EMAIL
VIRALBLOGS
SEM
CONTESTS
PARTNERSHIPS
1. ACQUISITION
Users come to your site
from various channels

60. 2. ACTIVATION
Users enjoy their first visit
SEO PR
EMAIL
VIRALBLOGS
SEM
CONTESTS
PARTNERSHIPS

61. 3. RETENTION
Users come back
SEO PR
EMAIL
VIRALBLOGS
SEM
CONTESTS
PARTNERSHIPS

62. 4. REFERRAL
Users like the product
enough to refer friends
SEO PR
EMAIL
VIRALBLOGS
SEM
CONTESTS
PARTNERSHIPS
Referral

63. 5. REVENUE
Users do something that
leads you to make money
SEO PR
EMAIL
VIRALBLOGS
SEM
CONTESTS
PARTNERSHIPS
Referral

64. THE LEAN
MARKETING
FUNNEL
SEO PR
EMAIL
VIRALBLOGS
SEM
CONTESTS
PARTNERSHIPS
Referral

65. Referral
AKA
“PIRATE
METRICS”
A
A
R
R
R
SEO PR
EMAIL
VIRALBLOGS
SEM
CONTESTS
PARTNERSHIPS

66. LET’S SEE IT
IN ACTION

67. YOU HEAR ABOUT QUORA AFTER
YOUR FRIEND POSTS A QUESTION
FROM QUORA ON TWITTERACQUISITION

68. AFTER READING THE PAGE YOU
DECIDE TO CREATE AN ACCOUNTACQUISITION
ACTIVATION

69. … A FEW DAYS GO BY
ACQUISITION
ACTIVATION

70. YOU GET A WEEKLY DIGEST
EMAIL WITH QUESTIONS AND
LINKS BACK TO THE SITEACQUISITION
ACTIVATION
RETENTION

71. ONCE YOU’RE BACK, QUORA
ENCOURAGES YOU TO READ
RELATED QUESTIONSACQUISITION
ACTIVATION
RETENTION

72. AND SHARE INTERESTING
QUESTIONS THROUGH TWITTER &
FACEBOOKACQUISITION
ACTIVATION
RETENTION
REFERRAL

73. QUORA DOESN’T
CURRENTLY MAKE MONEYACQUISITION
ACTIVATION
REVENUE
RETENTION
REFERRAL

74. EACH STEP OF THE
LMF CORRESPONDS
TO A USER STATE

75. To figure out how to move users from one state to the next.
GROWTH HACKER’S JOB:
CREATES AN ACCOUNT VISITS AGAIN LATER
???

76. CONVERSION RATE:
# OF PEOPLE WHO DO
SOMETHING
# OF PEOPLE
WHO COULD HAVE

77. YOU NEED TO MEASURE
CONVERSIONS AT EACH STEP
Acquisition Activation Retention Revenue
1000
100
30 9
10%
30%
30%

79. IDENTIFYING THE BOTTLENECK
At first your numbers will be really bad
Acquisition Activation Retention Revenue
1000
10
2 0
1%
18%
0%
BOTTLENECK

80. Acquisition Activation Retention Revenue
1000
100
2 0
10%
18%
0%
IDENTIFYING THE BOTTLENECK

81. GROWTH HACKERS
IDENTIFY TACTICS &
BEST PRACTICES

82. MINIMAL LANDING PAGES
TO CONVERT BETTER

83. IDENTIFY COMPANIES THAT FOCUS ON OPTIMIZING
AND TRY TO LEARN FROM THEM

85. NOT EVERY GROWTH
HACK WILL WORK FOR
YOUR COMPANY

86. GROWTH HACKERS
EXPERIMENT A LOT

87. HOW DO YOU RUN
A PROPER EXPERIMENT?

88. DIVIDE USERS INTO
CONTROL AND TEST GROUPS

89. DIVIDE USERS INTO
CONTROL AND TEST GROUPS

90. CONTROL TEST

91. Run your change on the test group and measure
the difference between the two groups
CONTROL TEST

92. THIS IS CALLED AN
A/B TEST

93. SUCCESSFUL
A/B TESTING

94. LET’S SEE IT
IN ACTION

95. Original Design
#1 ORIGINAL
Highrise wanted to test out different
homepages to see if they could
increase account signups

96. So they created a “long-form”
sales letter page
#2 LONG-FORM
Long-form Design

97. SO THEY RAN AN A/B TEST
Long-form Design
vs.
Original Design

98. CAN YOU GUESS THE RESULTS?
Long-form Design
vs.
Original Design

99. WINNER!
Long-form Design
vs.
Original Design

100. THE LONG-FORM DESIGN
SAW A 37.5% INCREASE IN
ACCOUNT SIGN-UPS

101. Then they created a personal
testimonial page
#3 PERSONAL
Person Design

102. AND RAN ANOTHER A/B TEST
Person Design
vs.
Original Design

103. Person Design
vs.
Original Design
CAN YOU GUESS THE RESULTS?

104. WINNER!
Person Design
vs.
Original Design

105. THE PERSON-TESTIMONIAL
DESIGN HAD A 102.5% INCREASE
IN ACCOUNT SIGN-UPS

106. BUT THE PERSON DESIGN WAS SHORTER
AND HAD MUCH LESS INFORMATION
Person Design
vs.
Long-form Design

107. So they added more
information to the bottom
LONG-FORM
+ PERSON
Long-form +
Person Design

108. AND RAN ANOTHER A/B TEST
Long-form + Person
Design
vs.
Person Design

109. Long-form + Person
Design
vs.
Person Design
WHAT DO YOU THINK?

110. Long-form + Person
Design
vs.
Person Design

111. THE COMBINATION PERFORMED
22.7% WORSE THAN THE
ORIGINAL HOMEPAGE

112. THE COMBINATION PERFORMED
22.7% WORSE THAN THE
ORIGINAL HOMEPAGE

113. BUT THAT’S
NOT WHERE
THE TESTING
ENDS…

114. From Dave McClure’s Startup Metrics for Pirates

115. UNBOUNCE AND OPTIMIZELY ARE AMAZING TOOLS FOR
EASILY CREATING AND TESTING LANDING PAGES

116.