Ignore PR and buzz, use Google Trends to assess traction instead. [Yelp shows a healthy navigational search graph - lots of people are continuing to search for its brand, and you can see some seasonality where it peaks every August, goes down during Q4, then starts coming back up in Q1.] PR buzz is useless for assessing product traction Traction is everything, and it’s easy to confuse press buzz with actually having product/market fit.
Writers for blogs and newspapers love novel ideas that sound amazing on paper, especially when the new products are being introduced by credible entrepreneurs. However, when you’re in the business of making product and investment decisions, it’s important to understand what’s actually working and what’s not- having buzz isn’t enough. This article is about one of the ways to answer the question, “Is X product really working?” Unsustainable paid ads, where spending outpaces lifetime value of the users acquired. This consumer demand curve is really the leading indicator of traffic. Airbnb Seems to be growing very nicely. Lessons learned from growing LinkedIn to 175 million users via Sandi MacPherson, Editor-in-Chief at Quibb. Elliot Schmukler spoke at the Growth Hacker Conference this weekend, along with Sean Ellis, Andrew Chen, and Chamath Palihapitiya.
Elliot joined LinkedIn in 2008 and grew the site from 13M to over 175M users by following a few simple concepts. The concepts really resonated with me as I grow Quibb - a new product to reinvent professional news, starting with the tech & startup vertical. While the professional news segment is not exactly LinkedIn's focus, Elliot's advice was quite general, so a lot of the lessons are directly applicable to any startup. Before you get started: Understand your channelsIf you're not able to break up your channels and flows to understand how new users come to your product, you won't know where to focus your time and energy.
In 2008, Elliot was able to identify LinkedIn's 3 main channels (email invitations, SEO results leading to profile page landings, and homepage views) and the conversion rates of each. Reduce friction vs. Discuss on HN. Growth Hackers Conference: Lessons Learned by @blossom_io. Here is a brief write-up of my notes from last week’s Growth Hackers Conference in Menlo Park. I tried to sum up the essential bits of information that stuck with me and hope that they will be useful for you as well. You can take a look at the incredible lineup of speakers that were at the conference here. Culture wins every time Chamath Palihapitiya kickstarted the day by sharing his personal lessons learned from leading Facebook’s Growth Team. An interesting point he emphasized early on was that culture trumps everything else. "Culture wins every time. Chamath was very careful about picking the right people for his team. Very high IQStrong sense of purposeRelentless focus on successAggressive and competitiveHigh quality bar bordering on perfectionismLikes changing and disrupting thingsNew ideas on how to do things betterHigh integritySurrounds themselves with good peopleCares about building real value over perception Establish a dead-simple Framework Resurrecting lost Users is hard.
Behind the scenes: A/B testing part 3: Finalé by Jamie of 37signals. I was an A/B test skeptic. Maybe we don’t want to be second-guessed. Maybe we don’t want to cater to the lowest common denominator. Designers are taught—explicitly and implicitly—to follow certain visual rules and the final design will work great. The whole A/B testing concept probably came from from “strategy analysts” or “MBAsses”. Anyway, now I’m a believer in A/B testing. How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb Designers, you’ve been in critiques where Clients, Art Directors, Creative Directors, Project Managers, Copywriters, Executive Assistants, and other Designers have picked apart your work. You listened with agony when they questioned your choice of this shade of red or this typeface. Next time say, “I hear your concern about the shade of red. Increasing our Signups through A/B Testing A few weeks ago Noah and I talked about the testing we’ve been doing with the Highrise marketing site. 37.5% more people signed up for Highrise with the Long Form design.
Conclusions. Conversion optimization. Web origins[edit] Conversion optimization was born out of the need of lead generation and ecommerce Internet marketers to improve their website's results. As competition grew on the web during the early 2000s, Internet marketers had to become more measurable with their marketing tactics. They began experimenting with website design and content variations to determine which layouts, copy text, offers and images will improve their conversion rate. Why conversion optimization[edit] Frequently, when marketers target a pocket of customers that has shown spectacular lift in an ad campaign, they belatedly discover the behavior is not consistent. Online marketing response rates fluctuate widely from hour to hour, segment to segment and offer to offer.
This phenomenon can be traced to the difficulty humans have separating chance events from real effects. These methodologies, or “conversion optimization” methods, are then taken a step further to run in a real-time environment. Hypothesis[edit] Growth Hacker Live. Invalid quantity. Please enter a quantity of 1 or more. The quantity you chose exceeds the quantity available. Please enter your name. Please enter an email address. Please enter a valid email address. Please enter your message or comments. Please enter the code as shown on the image. Please select the date you would like to attend. Please enter a valid email address in the To: field. Please enter a subject for your message. Please enter a message. You can only send this invitations to 10 email addresses at a time. $$$$ is not a properly formatted color.
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Please read and accept the waiver. All fields marked with * are required. US Zipcodes need to be 5 digits. How to Model Viral Growth: Retention & Virality Curves. Growthathon. - All About Viral Growth. Growth Hackers Conference. (80) Growth Hacking - Quora. What can established businesses learn from Growth Hacking? Have you noticed the emergence of the term “growth hacking” for describing a marketing approach. I did and dismissed it as a fad most relevant for SaaS (Software as a Service) / single product startup businesses. But recently, I’ve noticed some new job descriptions in this area which prompted me to take another look. In particular, I noticed that The Guardian is currently advertising for a Head of Growth Hacking… “The Guardian is committed to a “digital-first” strategy and in order to support this, we are seeking a Head of Growth Hacking to manage a virtual, cross functional team focused on GNM’s growth hacking plan.
This role is responsible for finding innovative ways to accelerate adoption, use, and retention to drive up audiences to the Guardian’s digital product portfolio”. There are other jobs available too in UK-based startups such as Gumtree, MyBuilder and VZaar and many more in the US… This seems to be a trend! What is Growth Hacking? So, it’s direct marketing right? 1. 2. 3. 4. What is “Growth Hacking” really? — What I Learned Building…
There is a lot of buzz around the new term "Growth Hacking", and many companies I know or have met recently are looking for a "Growth Hacker". I worry sometimes that this feels like a fad and people think "ooh, I will grow much faster if I can just find a magical unicorn growth hacker" or start to believe that you really can hack sustainable growth in any way. While I think it is fantastic that many more companies are taking growth seriously, I think it is important that people keep their eyes on the big prize of building deep, sustainable companies and networks. You can't hack the long term patterns of growth -- when someone is so actively using a product that they keep sharing it with their friends without realizing it. Or so in love with a product they tell everyone about it.
Or they demand their friends join so that their friendship gets even better. Understanding how this works and recognizing it when it starts to emerge is critical. 1. 2. 3. 4. Josh Elman's Approach to Growth - Growth Hacking. The following is not a verbatim of Josh's talk, but rather notes recompiled from memory and pictures, by . as a principal in 2011.
Prior to Greylock, Josh was a product lead for growth and relevance at Twitter, and helped Twitter grow it's active user base by nearly 10x. Before Twitter, Josh worked on the platform at Facebook and led the launch of Facebook Connect. Earlier in his career, Josh led product management for Zazzle, was part of the early team at LinkedIn focused on growth and jobs, and led product and engineering for RealJukebox and RealPlayer at RealNetworks. Josh holds a BS in Symbolic Systems with a focus on Human Computer Interaction from Stanford University. You cannot build a business without "figuring out" growth. You don't win with a better idea, a better design, or better engineering. its the ones who figure out growth. Growth is also not just growing 'signups'. So if you have an idea, not figuring out growth means it cannot ever become a big business 1. 2. 3. 4.
Defining A Growth Hacker: Debunking The 6 Most Common Myths About Growth Hacking. In this series titled “Defining a growth hacker,” I explore the meaning and practical application of growth hacking through a number of interviews with prominent growth hackers. This is the fifth and final post in the series. The previous posts are as follows: common characteristics among growth hackers here, growth hacking’s impact on marketing here and product here, and how to build a growth into a team here. With any buzz, popular sentiment can become detached from reality. Thought leaders in a burgeoning space can be blown up with grand expectations that can embellish the truth that lies underneath the surface. Today, growth has become a regular topic of conversation in Silicon Valley. Myth No. 1: Growth Hacking Is A Cheat Sheet Of Secrets On Growth Reality: The “secret” is the mindset, not the toolset.
Growth hackers are often viewed as the key part of a secret recipe to create a rocketship startup. Myth No. 2: A Growth Hacker Is A Quick Fix For A Company’s Problems. Defining A Growth Hacker: Building Growth Into Your Team. In this series titled “Defining a growth hacker,” I will be exploring the meaning and practical application of growth hacking through a number of interviews with prominent growth hackers. This is the fourth post of the series. The previous posts are as follows: common characteristics here, growth hacking’s impact on marketing here, and impact on product here. Paul Graham reminded the startup community that it is in the business of growth. “A startup is a company designed to grow fast,” Graham writes. Though growing a business is a universal desire, implementing growth is unique to the product, the market, and the company. A growth hacker’s role is not static but constantly adapting to the organization’s needs.
Adopting a culture of growth Valuing “growth” is more than just filling a position. From day one, company culture is being fastened and formed. Adopting a growth creed at any point in time requires trust in the process and continuous internal advocacy. Implementation. Defining A Growth Hacker: Growth Is Not A Marketing Strategy. In this series titled “Defining a growth hacker,” I will be exploring the meaning and practical application of growth hacking through a number of interviews with prominent growth hackers. This is the third post of the series on product. You can find the first post on common characteristics here and growth hacking’s impact on marketing here.
“Viral marketing is not a marketing strategy,” Andrew Chen wrote back in 2007. “Successful viral products don’t have viral marketing bolted on once the product has been developed. While growth hacking has changed the worldview of many great marketers, growth hackers are also rethinking and redesigning the way products are developed and analyzed. A growth hacker is a product-based role for four reasons: growth hacking is a sub-specialty of both marketing and product, engagement is central to growth hackers, growth is a form of product “R&D,” and growth hackers are empowered in a product role.
Growth as a sub-specialty 50% acquisition; 50% engagement. Defining A Growth Hacker: 5 Ways Growth Hackers Changed Marketing. In this series titled “Defining a growth hacker”, I am exploring the meaning and practical application of growth hacking through a number of interviews with prominent growth hackers. This is the second post the series, which outlines the ways growth hacking changed marketing. You can find the first post, “Defining A Growth Hacker: Three Common Characteristics,” here. The Internet has been the most disruptive vehicle in modern memory, changing everything from the way we buy shoes to the way we connect with friends.
The profession of marketing has no less transformed over the last two decades. As social platform adoption became prolific, growth hacking spawned and changed the way startups thought about marketing and growth. Danielle Morrill, co-founder of Referly, says “The best growth hackers are questioning marketing as we know it today, because the online tactics that were once the territory of a select few are now table stakes.”
Growth first, budgets second Spending is not the focus. Defining A Growth Hacker: Three Common Characteristics. In this series titled “Defining a growth hacker”, I will be exploring the meaning and practical application of growth hacking through a number of interviews with prominent growth hackers. This is the first post the series and will outline the common characteristics of a growth hacker. Growth hackers are making their mark in technology. Job postings are popping up all over the web looking for a growth hacker. Companies at all stages are itching to find these professors of growth and often recruiting as aggressively as UX and CS candidates.
Despite the buzz and increasing commercialization, most companies are unaware of the true meaning of growth hacking other than the simplistic acknowledgement that “they grow stuff” or “get users”. Data Growth hackers have a passion for tracking and moving a metric. Creativity Michael Birch, one of the first growth hackers and co-founder of Bebo, says, “growth hacking is both an art and a science.”
Curiosity. Andy Johns' "The Case for User Growth Teams" via Greg Buckner, Founder and CEO at Raft. These are my notes from a talk delivered by new Quibb member Andy Johns in August. Andy is currently the head of the User Growth team at Quora with experience at both Facebook and Twitter managing growth. He delivered this to the LA Lean Startup Circle (a great group if you're in Los Angeles organized by Quibbers Patrick Vlaskovitz, Pete Mauro, and others).
Lots of interesting examples from his time at Facebook and Twitter worth reading. Some of the basics Quibbers will be familiar with if you read AC's blog or any of the other Growth Hacking posts in vogue. With Andy's permission, enjoy: What is a User Growth team? Focusing on growth is like switching from simple to compound interest. Remember that user growth teams can only optimize existing flows. User Growth Accounting… The FormulaThis is the most basic formula for user growth: New user signups+Reactivations of current users-Deactivations of current users-Churn———————————————=User growth (over any given period) Thanks, Andy! Chamath Palihapitiya On Growth Hacking And How To Create A Sustainable User Acquisition Engine. How do I learn to be a growth hacker? Work for one of these guys :) Growth Hacker is the new VP Marketing. Find a Growth Hacker for Your Startup. The Growth Hacker Mafia. What is a growth hacker? How Growth Hacking Came to Be.