The document discusses key insights from a growth hacking session, emphasizing that growth hacking complements traditional marketing and relies on data-driven experimentation to find effective growth strategies. High-growth companies are shown to outperform their peers significantly, necessitating a rigorous process of identifying and optimizing growth levers. Successful case studies, such as Dropbox and Airbnb, illustrate the importance of understanding user behavior and leveraging innovative approaches to boost customer acquisition and retention.

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3. • 15 year startup growth veteran
• Wrote Startup Growth Engines with Sean Ellis
• My hobby is studying fast growing companies
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4. 3TAKEAWAYS
1. Growth hacking complements marketing – not a replacement
2. Use data to find leverage points and double down on those
3. Rapid, continuous experimentation key to growth – no silver
bullets
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5. “Most startups don’t fail at building
a product. They fail at acquiring
customers.”
Growth is Everything
– Gabriel Weinberg
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6. • McKinsey & Co. studied 3,000 software companies
with different growth rates
• High-growth companies deliver 5x greater returns than
medium growth companies
• Supergrowers (CAGR > 60% at $100m mark) were 8x
more likely to reach $1B
• Increase in growth rates drive 2x the market
capitalization as margin reduction in companies < $4B
• No correlation between cost & growth rates
Growth is Everything
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7. What is growth hacking?
A cool-sounding euphemism for making
the doer feel good about using the same
old sleazy marketing tricks.
– David Heinemeier Hansen, 37 Signals
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8. What is growth hacking?
A … focus on understanding your users and how
they discover and adopt your products, [so] you
can build features that help you acquire and retain
more users, rather than just spending marketing
dollars.
– Josh Elman, Greylock. Frmr.
Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn
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9. $0
$20
$40
$60
$80
$100
$120
$140
$160
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
3.5x
US Online Ad Spend
per User
Extreme Competition for Attention
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10. Extreme Competition for Attention
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
WOM
Email
MySpace
Facebook
Craigslist
Twitter
iOS
Android
James Currier
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11. Yet some huge successes…
Little or no traditional marketing…
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13. Use a Growth Hacking Playbook
• Experiment with all available growth levers
• Understand what’s driving growth, test to improve it
• Heavy focus on product and optimization
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14. The Dropbox Growth Story
• 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
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15. B2C or B2B
• Growth hacking isn’t just for consumer-focused
companies.
• B2B often requires integration with sales process.
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16. HUBSPOT – FREE TOOLS
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18. Finding Your Own Growth Levers
• Areas of exploration
• Process, team and tools
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19. SOME AREAS OF EXPLORATION
• Platform Integrations
• User-Get-User
• Free Tools
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20. SOME AREAS OF EXPLORATION
• Powered By
• Reverse Engineer Success
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21. Hotel Tonight’s 3G Epiphany
• Discover the why can lead to breakthroughs
in growth
• HotelTonight found poor data connections
drove conversion rates UP.
• WHY?
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22. Success Data: AirBnB’s Pro Photos
• Discovered that listings with high-
quality photos received
2-3x bookings
• Invests in professional photography
• Booking activity explodes as desire
increases
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23. Discover Your Magic Number
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25. Twitter’s Follow 30 People
"Once a user follows 30 people, they're more or less active forever.”
– Josh Elman, Greylock
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26. Experimentation Is Key To Success
• Generate many ideas for experiments
• Prioritize by impact, confidence & ease
• Balance high impact & high probability tests
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28. Growth Team Often Needed
• Multi-disciplinary
• Cross functional
• Evangelize experimentation culture
“Growth team” complements existing marketing team
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29. HELPFUL TOOLS
• Analytics — Identify drop-off points and under-performing pages (e.g. Google
Analytics, 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.
Optimizely, Unbounce)
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30. Relentless Execution of Growth Processes
1. Ideas
2.Prioritize
3.Test4.Analyze
5.Optimize
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31. 3TAKEAWAYS
1. Growth hacking complements marketing – not a
replacement
2. Use data to find leverage points and double down on
those
3. Rapid, continuous experimentation key to growth – no
silver bullets
#SEJSummit #Searchmetrics

32. Morgan Brown
@morganb
GrowthHackers.com
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