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Listen, in essence, growth hacking is this. Instead of building a product and then marketing it, you understand that the product is the marketing; let that sett

Listen, in essence, growth hacking is this. Instead of building a product and then marketing it, you understand that the product is the marketing; let that settle in. Your growth marketer should be involved from ideation phases right up to executing the whole GTM. You can't build a product and then say, "Here, now go hack some growth". All that brings is epic magnitudes of failure. Growth hacking isn't finding a magical lever like airbnb, reddit, etc, you can't make non-viral product go viral, that's just forceful and any virality that is forceful and not innately built into the core functionality of the product just will never achieve sustainable growth, period. It's like all the nut jobs that talk about the k-factor and all that crap, it's complete bullshit.

curiously 12y ago
I agree but I'd also add the question: is viral growth a right move for your product? what if the people your free users refer to are more free users? what if you all the viral attention just end up bringing hoard of freeloaders instead of customers? You are not facebook, you are not dropbox, you need customers to survive and you know have an army of seathing, angry, picky, freeloaders now ready to blog and spread negative word on the first chance they see something they are receiving for absolute free? Free has no value. Free isn't a competitive edge. So does viral growth that just magnifies that aspect really make sense?
- ulisesrmzroche 12y ago
  Free has value and competitive edge. Especially when the costs involve educating your market. The problem in your scenario is not that the word spread, but that the word that spread wasn't any good.
  - curiously 12y ago
    I disagree. Free is not something you can compete on sustainable manner. Eventually you will need to start making cash. It's quite a bold gamble betting that educating your market will eventually lead into customers. Imagine if one guy looking for a free tool tells 10 other people about the free tool. you are going to end up with 11 people now using your tool. if it costs you to upkeep the tool for each customer, you've now mangified it by 10 fold. you start hoping that one of these customers one day will become a customer but are they really? you've sold them something free, it costs nothing therefore there's no reason to pay for it, ever.
    - kamilszybalski 12y ago
      If you build a small base of customers that absolutely love what you do, that's far more sustainable than building something that a lot of like what you do. Growth is more sustainable when you've built a product that can scale because it actually addressed a problem that is passionately shared by others. Think about the major successes that exist today...how did they start...then you'll have your answer.
    - ulisesrmzroche 12y ago
      It's not a bold gamble, educating your market is definitely taking into account as a cost of capital, from consumer electronics to, food, to tech startups. And it's definitely not about hope, there is a clear marketing strategy to get people to buy again. Just google free trials and samples, even supermarkets have been doing this forever, it's not a new concept. This is because it is ALWAYS more expensive to get a new customer than keep an older one. In software, the cost to onboard a new user is or should be insignificant. If you don't have this working for you, go back and try again.
- wildpeaks 12y ago
  > you need customers to survive Except if someone's plan to make money out of it is to sell the company while the hype is strong.
softdev12 12y ago
i agree completely with your first sentence. Having distribution is just as important as the core use case of the product. In the beginning, it may actually be more important. One of the most fascinating things about the recent explosion of the Magic service, was how Hacker News (and Product Hunt) essentially acted as a growth hack for a product that was developed in a weekend. Given that the people behind Magic were in the YC batch and probably had access to strong upvoting on Hacker News, that seems like a really good example of a growth hack (where the product is the marketing).
gk1 12y ago
Trying to define "growth hacking" is a pointless endeavor at this point. Whatever you think it _used_ to mean, it's become nothing more than an empty marketing buzzword that means a thousand things to a thousand people. When you use a word like that, you're communicating nothing and giving people a reason to stop taking you seriously. Whether you mean "growth marketing," "conversion optimization," "a/b testing," "a clever tactic," ... just say that.
- CPLX 12y ago
  The phrase is a synonym for marketing. The use of a different term is essentially a dog whistle saying "marketing of certain kinds of things" or "marketing by certain kinds of people" but the actual activity described fits completely within the relatively simple and well understood definition of marketing.

curiously 12y ago

I agree but I'd also add the question: is viral growth a right move for your product? what if the people your free users refer to are more free users? what if you all the viral attention just end up bringing hoard of freeloaders instead of customers? You are not facebook, you are not dropbox, you need customers to survive and you know have an army of seathing, angry, picky, freeloaders now ready to blog and spread negative word on the first chance they see something they are receiving for absolute free? Free has no value. Free isn't a competitive edge. So does viral growth that just magnifies that aspect really make sense?

ulisesrmzroche 12y ago
Free has value and competitive edge. Especially when the costs involve educating your market. The problem in your scenario is not that the word spread, but that the word that spread wasn't any good.
- curiously 12y ago
  I disagree. Free is not something you can compete on sustainable manner. Eventually you will need to start making cash. It's quite a bold gamble betting that educating your market will eventually lead into customers. Imagine if one guy looking for a free tool tells 10 other people about the free tool. you are going to end up with 11 people now using your tool. if it costs you to upkeep the tool for each customer, you've now mangified it by 10 fold. you start hoping that one of these customers one day will become a customer but are they really? you've sold them something free, it costs nothing therefore there's no reason to pay for it, ever.
  - kamilszybalski 12y ago
    If you build a small base of customers that absolutely love what you do, that's far more sustainable than building something that a lot of like what you do. Growth is more sustainable when you've built a product that can scale because it actually addressed a problem that is passionately shared by others. Think about the major successes that exist today...how did they start...then you'll have your answer.
  - ulisesrmzroche 12y ago
    It's not a bold gamble, educating your market is definitely taking into account as a cost of capital, from consumer electronics to, food, to tech startups. And it's definitely not about hope, there is a clear marketing strategy to get people to buy again. Just google free trials and samples, even supermarkets have been doing this forever, it's not a new concept. This is because it is ALWAYS more expensive to get a new customer than keep an older one. In software, the cost to onboard a new user is or should be insignificant. If you don't have this working for you, go back and try again.
wildpeaks 12y ago
> you need customers to survive Except if someone's plan to make money out of it is to sell the company while the hype is strong.

softdev12 12y ago

i agree completely with your first sentence. Having distribution is just as important as the core use case of the product. In the beginning, it may actually be more important. One of the most fascinating things about the recent explosion of the Magic service, was how Hacker News (and Product Hunt) essentially acted as a growth hack for a product that was developed in a weekend. Given that the people behind Magic were in the YC batch and probably had access to strong upvoting on Hacker News, that seems like a really good example of a growth hack (where the product is the marketing).

gk1 12y ago

Trying to define "growth hacking" is a pointless endeavor at this point. Whatever you think it _used_ to mean, it's become nothing more than an empty marketing buzzword that means a thousand things to a thousand people. When you use a word like that, you're communicating nothing and giving people a reason to stop taking you seriously. Whether you mean "growth marketing," "conversion optimization," "a/b testing," "a clever tactic," ... just say that.

CPLX 12y ago
The phrase is a synonym for marketing. The use of a different term is essentially a dog whistle saying "marketing of certain kinds of things" or "marketing by certain kinds of people" but the actual activity described fits completely within the relatively simple and well understood definition of marketing.