GROWTH HACKING

Morgan Brown

ABOUT ME
12+ years of user acquisition, social and
product marketing for startups.
Grown companies from 0 100k+ users in
months 3 times.
Get geeked out about viral growth and
product-oriented hacks.
2nd time here at OCPM hoping to earn a 3rd.

WHAT IS GROWTH HACKING?

A methodology that leverages strategies
aimed at unlocking growth at scale.
Growth by being smarter, not spending more,
than the other guy.
The practice of finding exponential upside to
marketing investment.

WHAT IS A GROWTH HACKER?

Hybrid skill set of marketing, product &
engineering.
Ability to optimize for user acquisition at
scale.
Ability to drive exponential growth from
efforts.

WHY GROWTH HACKING?

Traditional marketing and growth channels
are expensive and hyper-competitive.
Companies that are resource constrained
cant compete effectively in crowded spaces.
Its about creating an unfair advantage by
leveraging asymmetries in the market.

TENENTS OF GROWTH HACKING

OBSESS OVER DATA
Know your customer exceptionally well.
Measure everything.

CREATIVITY
Think different.
Push the limits.

CURIOSITY
Learn early, learn often.
Poke around.

DIRTY HANDS
Get in at the code & product level.
Make, launch and break stuff.

CATEGORIES OF GROWTH HACKS

Platform integrations
Viral Growth
Analytics
Grab bag

PLATFORM
INTEGRATION
Leveraging Super Networks

AIRBNB & CRAIGSLIST

Insight:
Craigslist is where people were looking for rooms to rent, short
& long term.
They could cross-post to Craigslist and tap a huge traffic
source.

Hack:
Even without an API the AirBnB team figured out a way to
hack the Craigslist submission process.

Result:
AirBnB drove more bookings (making customers happy) &
created new users at the same time.

AIRBNB & CRAIGSLIST

1.

2.

AIRBNB & CRAIGSLIST

3.

4.
Source: http://www.quora.com/Airbnb/How-does-Airbnb-automatically-post-on-Craigslist

BRANCH OUT & FACEBOOK

Insight:
People maintained a professional network on Facebook that was
often more engaged than on LinkedIn.
They could leverage the size of Facebook and its Open Graph
permissions to drive growth.

Hack:
One click invite send and account creation with Facebook
Connect.
Which friend would you rather work with mechanic.

Result:
Doubled size in a month. Went from 1MM to 10MM users in 3
months. Raised $24MM.
BranchOut mostly irrelevant now. Why?

BRANCH OUT DOUBLES IN 1 MONTH

http://www.quora.com/How-did-BranchOut-double-within-a-month

YOUTUBE & MYSPACE

Insight:
MySpace was where fans connected with musicians, but bands
couldnt post video.
If YouTube could make it easy to share video on MySpace
theyd instantly scale.

Hack:
One click, Flash-based embeddable widget for video. Bands
and fans could finally watch and share music videos.
Which friend would you rather work with mechanic.

Result:
By 2006 YouTubes reach grew past MySpace. The rest is
history.

TAKEAWAYS
Integrations should make both products
better
Study (and ask about) user behavior to
determine promising integrations
Test and discover valuable use cases
Measure conversions and revenue

VIRAL GROWTH
Leveraging Friend Networks

DROPBOX
Insight:

Traditional marketing wasnt working. Were spending $300+ to

acquire customers for a $99 service.
Activating customers was the key to paying accounts.
Their asset had a very low marginal cost to give away.

Hack:

Giving away free space in exchange for word of mouth referrals.

Giving away free space in exchange for activation.

Result:

Users sent 2.8 million direct referral invites in April 2010.

In Sept. 2008 the service had 100,000 registered users.
In Jan 2010 (15 mos.) the service had 4,000,000.
No traditional ad spend.

http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-dos-donts-of-referral-invite-programs

DROPBOX MAKES INVITES FUN

http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-dos-donts-of-referral-invite-programs

LIVINGSOCIAL
Insight:
Building an audience can be outside of the core product
experience.
The cost of giving away a deal is shared by the merchant, giving
away deals cheaper than giving away cash.

Hack:
Building a purely viral Facebook app called Pick Your 5, and
growing virally until pivoting to daily deals.
A new twist on refer-a-friend with the 3-and-free dynamic.

Result:
10s of millions of Facebook app installs
70MM users as of 11/12

LIVINGSOCIALs PICK YOUR 5

TAKEAWAYS
Viral growth doesnt exist for every product.
Viral growth comes from value being created
for the existing and new user.
Viral growth doesnt have to come from your
core product.
So many people use refer-a-friend. A twist is
required to stand out.

DATA
Deep insights to drive growth.

AIRBNB
Insight:
Listings with better photos get more bookings.

Hack:
Hacked product and customer experience to drive professional
photos for listings.
Saw that listings with pro photos received 2-3x more bookings.

Result:
Went from 20 photographers in the field in 2011 to doing 5,000
shoots per month.
Traffic takes off.

Source: Analytics Lessons Learned

AIRBNB CRACKS THE PHOTO CODE

Photographers

Source: Analytics Lessons Learned

CIRCLE OF MOMS
Insight:
Not all users are created equal.

Hack:
Discovered that moms on Circle of Friends were far more
active than other users:
Pivoted entire company from Circle of Friends to Circle of
Moms.

Result:
Grew from 2MM monthly active users to 4.5MM
Sold to Sugar Inc.

Source: Analytics Lessons Learned

HOW MUCH BETTER WERE MOMS?

Their messages to one another were on average 50% longer.

They were 115% more likely to attach a picture to a post.

They were 110% more likely to engage in a threaded (i.e. deep)

conversation.

They had friends who, once invited, were 50% more likely to
become engaged users themselves.

They were 75% more likely to click on Facebook notifications.

They were 180% more likely to click on Facebook news feed items


They were 60% more likely to accept invitations to the app.

Source: Analytics Lessons Learned

TWITTER
Insight:
Its not how many Tweets you send. Its how many people you
follow that determines success.
When users follow 5-10 people they are far more likely to
remain an active user.

Hack:
Drive product onboarding not around publishing or building an
audience, but following the right people.

Result:
40% of Twitters users use Twitter without publishing.
4x number of monthly visitors who dont login, just read the
stream.

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/09/the-logged-out-user-continued.html

TWITTERS TRY FIVE

Photographers

TAKEAWAYS
Sometimes growth doesnt come from where you expect it.

Leverage data to identify unique insights and opportunities.

If you think you have a worthwhile idea, test it quickly and
with the least effort possible.

Have a game plan of what to do if the idea succeeds and
how to scale it.

Iterate the product to solve for that use case that drives
growth.

Engagement is the rocket fuel to give you escape velocity
and long-term sustainable growth.

PHYSICAL &
OTHER HACKS
Growth Hacking requires creativity.

HACK GRAB BAG

Embeds
YouTube, SlideShare, Vimeo
Keys are: remove friction, optimize for SEO

Powered By
Freemium with branding, CTAs & backlinks: MailChimp, UserVoice
Keys are: identify what you power, track and test CTAs

Free Stuff
Viral tools that play to vanity/exclusivity: Klout, Twitter Grader
Keys are: Identify value/desire, provide reward or currency

Source: Hiten Shahs Growth Presentation (see notes)

WALL STREET JOURNAL

Insight:
Busy business people are constantly searching for ways to
connect to the Web.

Hack:
Offer free WiFi at popular spots across New York City.
Create email capture and activation funnel as part of
connecting to the Web.

Result:
Every user an opportunity to build their email marketing lists.

Source: GrowHack.com

DOLLAR SHAVE CLUB

Insight:
In a massive CPG category traditional advertising will never work,
you need to build a cult following.
The big players are actually terrible at branding and marketing.

Hack:
Upend the business model for razors.
Use viral video to acquire customers at low cost and create that
cult following.

Result:
DSC video viewed 5MM+ times
30,000 subscribers in first week
Raised $10MM to take on mens category

ZAPPOS
Insight:
With items that are hard to shop for online, superior service, not
price, will win.
Removing friction from online shopping is more important than
price.

Hack:
Reinvent what customer service means.
Bake cost of incredible service into product, position as free.

Result:
World renowned brand built on service.
Charge a premium on every item sold.
$800 million exit to Amazon.

TAKEAWAYS
Growth Hacking isnt just for consumer companies. B2B and
physical product manufacturers can hack growth.
Physical product hacks are harder, but not impossible. They
just require creativity and insight on how to reach users.

Hacks that make use of digital networks eliminate overhead
costs and find scale.
Same rules apply: creativity, data, curiosity, dirty hands.

BECOME A
GROWTH HACKER
Or at least a growth beginner.

YOU NEED A TEAM & A HYPOTHESIS

Create a growth team.

Marketer
Product person
Engineer
Sales

Create hypotheses about growth.

What changes do you think will move the needle?

What types of customers do you need to sustain growth?
What types of habits and behaviors do you need to engineer?
Map to customer decision making.

Source: Adam Nash http://blog.adamnash.com/2012/04/04/user-acquisition-viral-factor-basics/

GET DOWN IN THE DATA

Know your customers inside and out.

Go where your early adopters are.

Go niche first, the world second.
Hipsters
Moms
Geeks

Look for insights and patterns that represent

opportunities.
Source: Zero to a Million Users: http://www.slideshare.net/adamsmith1/from-zero-to-a-millionusers-dropbox-and-xobni-lessons-learned

ID HACKING OPPORTUNITIES
What platforms could I integrate into that would
bring instant scale?
Dont depend on just one.
Dont just think Facebook.

What are the core features of my product?

Which ones drive growth? How can I optimize
those?
How can I build distribution into inherent actions?

ID HACKING OPPORTUNITIES
What is the value to the user for reaching out to
non-users?

How does a hack align with my value proposition?

How does this hack improve the experience of
the user?

How can my product help others while gaining
distribution?

LEARN EARLY, LEARN OFTEN

Test and measure ideas on the cheap.
Build MVP versions, concierge versions.
Whats the easiest and fastest way to ship an
idea?
Numbers are your guide to everything.
Iterate like your life depends on it.

GET STARTED
Get Hacking.

GIDDY UP!
Review product and marketing opportunities.
Build your team.
Read and learn.
Become a growth beginner.
Celebrate growth in your organization.
Make 2013 the year of growth!

THANKS.

DESIGNING FOR VIRAL GROWTH

Get the inside scoop on designing for viral growth with this
infographic from Digital Telepathy:
http://www.dtelepathy.com/blog/design/design-viralgrowth

GET IN TOUCH
Morgan Brown
morgan@digital-telepathy.com
@morganb

Digital Telepathy
www.dtelepathy.com
@dtelepathy

REFERENCES // RESOURCES
Taking your site from One to One Million Users Kevin Rose
Hacking Growth at SlideShare
Growth Hiten Shah
From Zero to One Million Users DropBox and Xobni
Lessons Adam Smith
Growth Hacking 101 Your First 500,000 Users Yong Fook
Lean Analytics Alistair Croll & Benjamin Yoskovitz
Andrew Chens Blog