Growth hacking for non-techie founders

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A couple of days ago I read somewhere on LinkedIn, that clueless are the startups who are hiring growth hackers. It was part funny, and part sad. Sarcasm

It’s fancy to talk about hiring growth hackers these days, and flaunting the jargons to technically less privileged people. However the truth is that you, I and we all know about the so called growth hacking from years. It’s just that now we are using it differently.

In its very true sense, growth hacking is about building a product that sells itself, and require less or no marketing support as well as less or no marketing dollars.

So before I tell you how can you turn your existing marketing & product teams into a growth hacking teams, let’s just get some more clarity on growth hacking, so that my job to explain you becomes easier.

Few of the examples of startups that were built on growth hacking concept are below:

1. Whatsapp: I heard of Whatsapp from one of my friend who wanted to send me something quick, and shown me an easy way to do it. And I too invited several of my friends from my address book in phone for the sake of easy of communication.

2. Uber: I heard of Uber, when one of my family friends sent me a free ride coupon given by Uber itself. Though he got a free ride for himself as well.

3. PayTM: They used to give cashback on mobile phone recharges, that actually got the words out about the app?

4. iPhone: remember “Posted via iPhone” tag beneath Facebook posts?

5. ShareIt App?: I got to know about it from my younger brother when he said he can transfer me a file without internet. I asked how?

6. Pokemon-GO: it was a new kind game where you have had to go out to find creatures in real world places.

7. Navratan Cool Hair Oil: because it’s a balm you can apply directly on your entire head, and not alone on your forehead. A new way to relax your day.

8. JIO: And BAAP of all, Reliance JIO. It’s world’s fastest grown up startup ever, why because Jio wanted you to never pay for phone calls or sms again. Yuuhuu!

So I have taken examples from various industries just to paint a better clarity that growth hacking isn’t something that requires you to be a coder or an IT guy, it’s how you plan virility of your product.

Let me repeat. Growth hacking in its truer sense is to design a product that sells itself, without less or no marketing support, as well as less or no marketing dollars.

It’s like injecting a virility factor into your product itself during development phase, but don’t confuse it with refer-a-friend feature.

Now key points to bust few growth hacking myths:

1. Growth hacking is mainly about product designing. It’s not the marketing thing only.

2. Growth hacking used to be called ‘Lean Startup Way’ previously.

3. Your existing team can be your growth hacking team too.

4. Growth hacking doesn’t bring growth over night all of the sudden. It’s like taking time to design a virility inbuilt products undercover for months or years, and then scale it up with marketing funds.

5. Growth hacking is merely a term to define a process, and not a designation, so stop hiring growth hackers.

So the simplest answer to the question “What is growth hacking?” is, that it is a product development process by keeping virility at the centre of design.

So how can you turn your existing team in your growth hacking team?

Answer is, you have to lead the growth hacking process yourself. You have to get involved.

The top most priority is to identify the most crucially valuable & important feature that you believe customers want and may want their friends to use that too ie. Plan the virility of your product.

Next,

1. Break down your entire product overhauling project into small milestones ie. Tasks

2. Make a list of all the virility features that you want to test.

3. Let coders add a feature flow in your product.

4. Ask your marketing team to run a campaign story around your new feature ie. Promote it.

5. Measure results in window of 3-5 days.

6. Repeat from 2-to-5 with all the virility features that you identified at first place.

7. Identify the top 3 features that worked best.

8. Add them to the final product and relaunch.

9. Design a right storified campaign, promote the new features, and influence the usage.

Even if you are stunned in disbelief if you have really just decoded the mysterious growth hacking? the truth remains calm & cool that yes you have just decoded “The Growth hacking.”

Got questions? Shoot me your queries on #AskGauravPandey or write me to [email protected]