The short and sweet history of the controversial concept of 'growth hacking'
The term “ growth hacker ” was first introduced by Sean Ellis in 2010. When asked why he was compelled to coin the phrase, Sean credited his frustrations with having to find a suitable marketing replacement for hiring, who could fill his shoes. Let me explain.
Throughout his career, Sean worked at several internet companies, helping them grow their businesses exponentially, with some of his clients successfully launching IPOs . As a result, Sean became known as the go-to expert in the valley that could be called upon when companies were ready to expand and grow. Obviously oman phone number library in exchange for payments and other forms of capital, Ellis generated extreme growth for companies, earning him the title of “The Father of Growth.” He emerged as a one-man entrepreneurial dream shop, able to design operating systems, processes, and rebuild people’s mindsets to operate at his level and be able to embrace his work. Once he successfully completed developing his growth model, he created the ability to hand off the responsibility of operating his growth system to another professional, where he could then step away and enjoy other things.
This is what created the problem. When trying to identify replacements, Ellis often received qualified applications that were authentic but did not display the required relevance. These candidates were professional marketers and had marketing experience, but they still lacked a certain spark that Ellis needed to see. Sean knew that his tactics were not taught in universities and that they were not traditional moves that marketers would make. Sean had an extremely deep understanding of the types of strategies he incorporated and he knew that if he allowed these types of marketers to take his position, the relationship would not work and the perfect puzzle would not fit together properly, as his peers did. The skills were not the best match for his visions and implemented techniques.
Traditional marketers have a broad or unfocused area of expertise, making them jacks of all trades, but masters of none. And while their skill set provides immense value, they don’t provide what’s most needed when bringing a startup to life. During the early phase of a startup, “developing and managing a marketing team” or “dealing with outside vendors” or even “launching a strategic marketing plan to achieve corporate goals” or other objectives that marketers focus on completing, none of which are necessary. There’s only one thing a startup needs in the early stages. GROWTH!!!
When Sean went looking for marketers, he definitely found them. So Sean had to focus more on what he was looking for. His blog post, titled “Find a Growth Hacker for Your Startup,” ignited the virility of Growth Hacking as we know it today.
A growth hacker is not a replacement for a marketer. A growth hacker is neither above nor below a marketer. Growth hackers have differences that separate them from a marketer, to put it in terms that Sean used in his post to make the point: “A growth hacker is a person whose true north is growth.”
Grow Hackers are addicted to growth
Every decision a growth hacker makes is based on growth. Every plan, act, edge, or glimpse is centered around the goal of pure growth. Growth is the fuel that drives a growth hacker, and it lives and dies by their expressions and passion for growth. Sure, regular college marketers also care about growth as part of their business strategies, but not to the level or extent that a growth hacker expert (GHE) does. It is important to understand that the sole, singular, and most obsessive purpose is a specific goal and by not giving energy, attention, or concern to anything else, they can be extremely effective in executing the goal that is most important at the beginning of the startup journey: GROWTH!!!
This laser focus on growth has fueled the emergence of methods, tools, techniques, strategies and best practices that were simply not available in the traditional marketing repertoire, and as more innovations are introduced, the chasm between the two marketing disciplines becomes more intense.
Growth Hacking redefines products
Old-fashioned punters are very familiar with traditional products, but the Internet has allowed a radical expansion of what a product actually is. For more years than we can count, a product has always been considered a physical good, but now products can be bits and bytes that together form digital products. Products used to be objects like TVs, toothpaste, couches, and appliances. Now Facebook is a product, Google is a product, and basically the Internet, in general, is a product in some form. Even your hosting services for your website are a product. Things aren’t tangible things where you can touch them, feel them, and hold them like you could in the past. Now, they’re instant products, spontaneously moldable and adaptable to fit the needs of a diversifying market. It’s this digital evolution that has ultimately led to the creation or need for new-age growth hackers. The Internet provided the global community with an entirely new kind of product.
Embracing this changing definition of what products are has for the first time allowed products to scale themselves, tailoring experiences. It sounds a bit far-fetched, but do you hear? A new-generation product like Twitter allows you to directly share your version of the product with other people, regardless of their global positioning. Can you share a cup of sugar that easily with your neighbor? To start enjoying the product, you must first share it with someone else. Would you share your toothpaste like that? A product like DropBox, for example, can give you free cloud storage if you convince someone else to create an account with it. Can your couch offer you more seating to bring extra guests home?
If you don’t fully embrace this new product positioning that the Internet has empowered, you will find it extremely difficult to fully understand the concepts of growth hacking. Sean Ellis, the creator of the term “growth hacker,” was also the first to establish the growth of Dropbox. He understands what is intriguing about Internet products. And like him, growth hackers understand the existing potential of digital products to generate growth, so it is the responsibility of the software to turn the existing potential into an existing reality.
Redefining distribution the Growth Hack way
Despite the need for products, it would be a huge mistake to limit your focus to solar products. The same Internet that redefined products has successfully redefined distribution. And it is important to understand this new distribution – not all of it, but a good part of it – in order to know how to effectively grow the company’s products. Professionals with a deep understanding of how people operate and perceive products online will be able to use this knowledge to grow a client’s startup.
What about the highway systems that were built across the United States starting in the 1950s? Gas stations like Shell understood that the creation of these highways was also the creation of a funnel to direct customers in predictable directions, and they took full advantage of this. Soon enough, the interstate off-ramps were monopolized by these gas stations, even to this day. This is a clear example of what offline growth hacking was like before the internet and before growth hacking was established.
The Internet is a modern duplication of this example, but in a digital version. If you can identify the online channels that provide direction to people, information, and ideas, then you can set up your own Shell gas station where you know you will get plenty of traffic. Here are some simple examples that will get your brain juices pumping in the direction needed for your growth:
Instead of interstates providing a route to brick-and-mortar businesses, repurpose search engines like Google to find the way to virtual businesses. You can use SEO planning to target long-tail keywords – those who properly employ SEO strategies easily capture traffic from seekers who were on that digital path.
Instead of streets leading us to the local movie theater, we choose to plug in a Roku box and browse Netflix. People who depict this concept with a clear understanding are the people who will be able to perceive a product from a multitude of different perspectives.
Instead of roads providing routes to our friends' houses, we choose to be social using Twitter and Facebook. People will pick up on this as it empowers them with the ability to create their own agenda and merge it into the conversation implicitly and explicitly.
