Sean Ellis discusses the concept of growth hacking as a systematic process of experimentation rather than a magical solution. He emphasizes the importance of testing, optimizing, and understanding different growth levers, providing examples from successful companies like Dropbox and Airbnb. The document highlights the necessity for businesses to adapt their marketing strategies to foster innovation and maximize growth potential.

1. Growth Hacking Magic?
Sean Ellis
September 17, 2014
CEO of Qualaroo,
GrowthHackers.com
Twitter @seanellis
Going Beyond the Hype to Take Your
Business to the Next Level

2. About Me
• Founder/CEO of Qualaroo &
GrowthHackers.com
• Previously VP Marketing from customer zero to
NASDAQ IPO filing at LogMeIn and Uproar.com
• Then interim marketing exec roles at Dropbox,
Lookout and Eventbrite

3. Extreme Competition for Attention
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$0
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US Online Ad
Spend per User
3.5x

4. Rapidly Evolving Channels
MySpace
Twitter
Craigslist
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100
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60
40
20
0
WOM
Email
Facebook
iOS
Android
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James Currier

5. Yet Some Huge Startup Successes
Little or no traditional
marketing…
@seanellis

6. GROWTH HACKING
MAGIC?
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7. No – Rigorous Process of Experimentation
1. Ideas
2.Prioritize
5.Optimize
4.Analyze 3.Test
@seanellis

8. The Dropbox Growth Story
@seanellis
• Freemium reduced allowable CPA
• Natural advantages to grow with
collaboration and sharing
• Catalyze sharing with double sided
referral program
• Optimize conversions on sharing
loops
• 300 million users with no traditional
marketing

9. Desperation Drove Startups to Innovate
• Aggressive targets, tight resources
• Traditional approach not realistic
@seanellis
• Had to rethink growth…

10. The Growth Hacking Playbook
• Experiment with all
available growth levers
• Understand what’s
driving growth, test to
improve it
• Heavy focus on product
and optimization
http://www.michiganemploymentlawadvisor.com/

11. B2B or B2C?
• Growth hacking isn’t just for consumer-focused
@seanellis
companies.
• B2B often requires integration with sales process.

12. HubSpot’s Growth Hack – Free Tools
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13. Yammer – Engineered User-Get-User
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14. LinkedIn - Engineered User-Get-User
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15. PUTTING GROWTH HACKING TO
WORK FOR YOUR BUSINESS
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16. Finding Your Own Growth Hacks
@seanellis
• Areas of exploration
• Process, team and tools

17. Some Areas of Exploration
• Platform integrations
• Engineered user-get-user
• Free tools
Examples
25+ M users
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18. Areas of Exploration (Cont)
• Powered by
• Reverse engineer success
Examples
@seanellis

19. Success Data: Airbnb’s Pro Photos
• Airbnb discovered that
listings with high-quality
photos received 2-3x
bookings
• Airbnb invested in
professional photography
• Booking activity explodes
as desire increases
@seanellis

20. Other Growth Studies for Inspiration
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21. Experimentation is Key to Success
• Generate many ideas for experiments
• Prioritize by impact, confidence & effort
• Balance high impact & high probability tests
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22. GOAL:
INCREASED UNITS
OF GRATIFICATION

23. Double Down on Success
• Challenge is not finding
many channels that work,
but rather finding one.
• Often your best growth
opportunity is to double
down on what’s already
working.

24. Growth Team Often Needed
“Growth team” complements existing marketing team
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• Multi-disciplinary
• Cross functional
• Evangelize experimentation
culture

25. Some Helpful Tools
• Analytics — Identify drop-off points and under-performing
pages (e.g. Google Analytics,
@seanellis
KISSMetrics)
• Qualitative Insights — Uncover the why behind the
numbers (e.g. Qualaroo, SurveyMonkey)
• A/B Test — Find better performing combinations to
drive conversion rate (e.g. Hubspot, Optimizely)

26. Relentless Execution of Growth Process
1. Ideas
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2.Prioritize
5.Optimize
4.Analyze 3.Test

27. Key Takeaways
• Emerging marketing challenges require all to rethink growth
• Growth hacking is based experimentation, not silver bullets
• Add process/team to maximize number of experiments
• Get inspiration from data, VOC and what’s working for others
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28. Questions?
THANK YOU.
Sean Ellis
CEO of Qualaroo
& GrowthHackers.com
Twitter: @seanellis