GROWTH HACKING
Morgan Brown

ABOUT ME • 12+ years
of user acquisition, social and product marketing for startups. • Grown companies from 0 – 100k+ users in months 3 times. • Get geeked out about viral growth and product-oriented hacks. • 2nd time here at OCPM – hoping to earn a 3rd.

WHAT IS GROWTH HACKING? •
A methodology that leverages strategies aimed at unlocking growth at scale. • Growth by being smarter, not spending more, than the other guy. • The practice of finding exponential upside to marketing investment.

WHAT IS A GROWTH HACKER?
• Hybrid skill set of marketing, product & engineering. • Ability to optimize for user acquisition at scale. • Ability to drive exponential growth from efforts.

WHY GROWTH HACKING? • Traditional
marketing and growth channels are expensive and hyper-competitive. • Companies that are resource constrained can’t compete effectively in crowded spaces. • It’s about creating an unfair advantage by leveraging asymmetries in the market.

TENENTS OF GROWTH HACKING •
OBSESS OVER DATA – Know your customer exceptionally well. – Measure everything. • CREATIVITY – Think different. – Push the limits. • CURIOSITY – Learn early, learn often. – Poke around. • DIRTY HANDS – Get in at the code & product level. – Make, launch and break stuff.

CATEGORIES OF GROWTH HACKS •
Platform integrations • Viral Growth • Analytics • Grab bag

PLATFORM
INTEGRATION
Leveraging Super Networks

AIRBNB & CRAIGSLIST • Insight:
– Craigslist is where people were looking for rooms to rent, short & long term. – They could cross-post to Craigslist and tap a huge traffic source. • Hack: – Even without an API the AirBnB team figured out a way to hack the Craigslist submission process. • Result: – AirBnB drove more bookings (making customers happy) & created new users at the same time.

AIRBNB & CRAIGSLIST
1.
2.

AIRBNB & CRAIGSLIST 3. 4.
Source: http://www.quora.com/Airbnb/How-does-Airbnb-automatically-post-on-Craigslist

BRANCH OUT & FACEBOOK •
Insight: – People maintained a professional network on Facebook that was often more engaged than on LinkedIn. – They could leverage the size of Facebook and its Open Graph permissions to drive growth. • Hack: – One click invite send and account creation with Facebook Connect. – Which friend would you rather work with mechanic. • Result: – Doubled size in a month. Went from 1MM to 10MM users in 3 months. Raised $24MM. – BranchOut mostly irrelevant now. Why?

BRANCH OUT DOUBLES IN 1
MONTH http://www.quora.com/How-did-BranchOut-double-within-a-month

YOUTUBE & MYSPACE • Insight:
– MySpace was where fans connected with musicians, but bands couldn’t post video. – If YouTube could make it easy to share video on MySpace they’d instantly scale. • Hack: – One click, Flash-based embeddable widget for video. Bands and fans could finally watch and share music videos. – Which friend would you rather work with mechanic. • Result: – By 2006 YouTube’s reach grew past MySpace. The rest is history.

TAKEAWAYS • Integrations should make
both products better • Study (and ask about) user behavior to determine promising integrations • Test and discover valuable use cases • Measure conversions and revenue

VIRAL GROWTH
Leveraging Friend Networks

DROPBOX • Insight: – Traditional
marketing wasn’t working. Were spending $300+ to acquire customers for a $99 service. – Activating customers was the key to paying accounts. – Their asset had a very low marginal cost to give away. • Hack: – Giving away free space in exchange for word of mouth referrals. – Giving away free space in exchange for activation. • Result: – Users sent 2.8 million direct referral invites in April 2010. – In Sept. 2008 the service had 100,000 registered users. – In Jan 2010 (15 mos.) the service had 4,000,000. – No traditional ad spend. http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-dos-donts-of-referral-invite-programs

DROPBOX MAKES INVITES FUN
http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-dos-donts-of-referral-invite-programs

LIVINGSOCIAL • Insight: – Building
an audience can be outside of the core product experience. – The cost of giving away a deal is shared by the merchant, giving away deals cheaper than giving away cash. • Hack: – Building a purely viral Facebook app called Pick Your 5, and growing virally until pivoting to daily deals. – A new twist on refer-a-friend with the 3-and-free dynamic. • Result: – 10’s of millions of Facebook app installs – 70MM users as of 11/12

LIVINGSOCIAL’s PICK YOUR 5

TAKEAWAYS • Viral growth doesn’t
exist for every product. • Viral growth comes from value being created for the existing and new user. • Viral growth doesn’t have to come from your core product. • So many people use refer-a-friend. A twist is required to stand out.

DATA Deep insights to drive
growth.

AIRBNB • Insight: – Listings
with better photos get more bookings. • Hack: – Hacked product and customer experience to drive professional photos for listings. – Saw that listings with pro photos received 2-3x more bookings. • Result: – Went from 20 photographers in the field in 2011 to doing 5,000 shoots per month. – Traffic takes off. Source: Analytics Lessons Learned

AIRBNB CRACKS THE PHOTO CODE
Photographers Source: Analytics Lessons Learned

CIRCLE OF MOMS • Insight:
– Not all users are created equal. • Hack: – Discovered that moms on Circle of Friends were far more active than other users: – Pivoted entire company from Circle of Friends to Circle of Moms. • Result: – Grew from 2MM monthly active users to 4.5MM – Sold to Sugar Inc. Source: Analytics Lessons Learned

HOW MUCH BETTER WERE MOMS?
• Their messages to one another were on average 50% longer. • They were 115% more likely to attach a picture to a post. • They were 110% more likely to engage in a threaded (i.e. deep) conversation. • They had friends who, once invited, were 50% more likely to become engaged users themselves. • They were 75% more likely to click on Facebook notifications. • They were 180% more likely to click on Facebook news feed items • They were 60% more likely to accept invitations to the app. Source: Analytics Lessons Learned

TWITTER • Insight: – It’s
not how many Tweets you send. It’s how many people you follow that determines success. – When users follow 5-10 people they are far more likely to remain an active user. • Hack: – Drive product onboarding not around publishing or building an audience, but following the right people. • Result: – 40% of Twitter’s users use Twitter without publishing. – 4x number of monthly visitors who don’t login, just read the stream. http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/09/the-logged-out-user-continued.html

TWITTER’S TRY FIVE
Photographers

TAKEAWAYS • Sometimes growth doesn’t
come from where you expect it. • Leverage data to identify unique insights and opportunities. • If you think you have a worthwhile idea, test it quickly and with the least effort possible. • Have a game plan of what to do if the idea succeeds and how to scale it. • Iterate the product to solve for that use case that drives growth. • Engagement is the rocket fuel to give you escape velocity and long-term sustainable growth.

PHYSICAL & OTHER HACKS Growth
Hacking requires creativity.

HACK GRAB BAG • Embeds
– YouTube, SlideShare, Vimeo – Keys are: remove friction, optimize for SEO • Powered By – Freemium with branding, CTAs & backlinks: MailChimp, UserVoice – Keys are: identify what you “power”, track and test CTAs • Free Stuff – Viral tools that play to vanity/exclusivity: Klout, Twitter Grader – Keys are: Identify value/desire, provide reward or currency Source: Hiten Shah’s Growth Presentation (see notes)

WALL STREET JOURNAL • Insight:
– Busy business people are constantly searching for ways to connect to the Web. • Hack: – Offer free WiFi at popular spots across New York City. – Create email capture and activation funnel as part of connecting to the Web. • Result: – Every user an opportunity to build their email marketing lists. Source: GrowHack.com

DOLLAR SHAVE CLUB • Insight:
– In a massive CPG category traditional advertising will never work, you need to build a cult following. – The big players are actually terrible at branding and marketing. • Hack: – Upend the business model for razors. – Use viral video to acquire customers at low cost and create that cult following. • Result: – DSC video viewed 5MM+ times – 30,000 subscribers in first week – Raised $10MM to take on men’s category

ZAPPOS • Insight: – With
items that are hard to shop for online, superior service, not price, will win. – Removing friction from online shopping is more important than price. • Hack: – Reinvent what customer service means. – Bake cost of incredible service into product, position as free. • Result: – World renowned brand built on service. – Charge a premium on every item sold. – $800 million exit to Amazon.

TAKEAWAYS • Growth Hacking isn’t
just for consumer companies. B2B and physical product manufacturers can hack growth. • Physical product hacks are harder, but not impossible. They just require creativity and insight on how to reach users. • Hacks that make use of digital networks eliminate overhead costs and find scale. • Same rules apply: creativity, data, curiosity, dirty hands.

BECOME A GROWTH HACKER Or
at least a growth beginner.

YOU NEED A TEAM &
A HYPOTHESIS • Create a growth team. – Marketer – Product person – Engineer – Sales • Create hypotheses about growth. – What changes do you think will move the needle? – What types of customers do you need to sustain growth? – What types of habits and behaviors do you need to engineer? – Map to customer decision making. Source: Adam Nash http://blog.adamnash.com/2012/04/04/user-acquisition-viral-factor-basics/

GET DOWN IN THE DATA
• Know your customers inside and out. • Go where your early adopters are. • Go niche first, the world second. – Hipsters – Moms – Geeks • Look for insights and patterns that represent opportunities. Source: Zero to a Million Users: http://www.slideshare.net/adamsmith1/from-zero-to-a-million- users-dropbox-and-xobni-lessons-learned

ID HACKING OPPORTUNITIES • What
platforms could I integrate into that would bring instant scale? – Don’t depend on just one. – Don’t just think Facebook. • What are the core features of my product? • Which ones drive growth? How can I optimize those? • How can I build distribution into inherent actions?

ID HACKING OPPORTUNITIES • What
is the value to the user for reaching out to non-users? • How does a hack align with my value proposition? • How does this hack improve the experience of the user? • How can my product help others while gaining distribution?

LEARN EARLY, LEARN OFTEN •
Test and measure ideas on the cheap. • Build MVP versions, concierge versions. • What’s the easiest and fastest way to ship an idea? • Numbers are your guide to everything. • Iterate like your life depends on it.

GET STARTED
Get Hacking.

GIDDY UP! • Review product
and marketing opportunities. • Build your team. • Read and learn. • Become a growth beginner. • Celebrate growth in your organization. • Make 2013 the year of growth!

THANKS.

DESIGNING FOR VIRAL GROWTH •
Get the inside scoop on designing for viral growth with this infographic from Digital Telepathy: • http://www.dtelepathy.com/blog/design/design-viral- growth

GET IN TOUCH Morgan Brown
morgan@digital-telepathy.com @morganb Digital Telepathy www.dtelepathy.com @dtelepathy

REFERENCES // RESOURCES • Taking
your site from One to One Million Users – Kevin Rose • Hacking Growth at SlideShare • Growth – Hiten Shah • From Zero to One Million Users – DropBox and Xobni Lessons – Adam Smith • Growth Hacking 101 – Your First 500,000 Users – Yong Fook • Lean Analytics – Alistair Croll & Benjamin Yoskovitz • Andrew Chen’s Blog