Growth hacking has exploded in popularity, with companies scrambling to find magical 'hackers' who create massive user bases and revenue out of thin air. Unfortunately, a closer look shows us that much of the hype is just that. To find growth, companies must stop searching for unicorns and do something much less sexy: get back to work. In this talk I'll cover: - how companies actually grow online based on studying dozens of fast-growing startups - why growth is based on companies finding winning tests faster - how we did that at growth hackers - how other companies do it (HubSpot, Twitter, more) - how to start hacking and start growing - things to avoid, etc.

1. GROWTH HACKING B.S.
FIXING MARKETING ONE TRUTH AT A TIME

2. 25.2 MILLION RESULTS

5. WHY? Marketers
THE RISE OF GROWTH HACKING

6. 1. MASSIVE LEAPS IN DATA
& CONNECTIVITY
2. RISE OF ONLINE PLATFORMS
3. MARKETING & TECH MELD

7. ENTREPRENEURS
THOUGHT [MARKETERS
WERE] GOING TO BUY
THEM SUPER BOWL ADS.
- Andrew Chen, Uber

8. WHATTHE HELL IS
GROWTH HACKING?
Marketers
HOW I DEFINE GROWTH HACKING

10. EXPERIMENT DRIVEN MARKETING
FOCUSED ON HOW PRODUCT USE
CREATES GROWTH.
Yours Truly
HOW I DEFINE GROWTH HACKING

11. HOW’D THEY DO IT?
PUNCHLINE:
Rapid experimentation is the
key to fast growth

12. Satya Patel, 2014 Agile Marketing Meetup
TWITTER GROWTH 2010 - 2012Users(MM)
0
50
100
150
200
Q1 '10 Q3 '10 Q1 '11 Q3 '11 Q1 '12 Q3 '12
0.5 tests/week 10 tests/week
TESTING DRIVES GROWTH

13. TWITTER CASE STUDY
‘GROWTH RELIES ON OPTIMIZATION’
▸ Iterated through many homepage tests
▸ Fixed form validation error with non-
Western account names leading to
+80k new accounts per day

14. PINTEREST CASE STUDY
‘GROWTH HACKING 2015+’
▸ Optimize copy across
customer communications
in 30 languages
▸ Make it easy to run
experiments at scale (30
languages, 15 variants
each)
▸ Have experiments auto-
resolve themselves
https://medium.com/@jwegan_com/how-pinterest-increased-maus-with-one-simple-trick-be424b02429d#.w1n7bpch8

15. Faster Tempo = More Learning
More Learning = More Growth
http://collegesportsblog.dallasnews.com/2014/01/baylor-10th-overall-in-espns-way-too-early-top-25-college-football-rankings.html/

16. http://searchengineland.com/local-content-silos-secret-local-search-success-223371
GROWTH IS A HORIZONTAL FUNCTIONGROWTH IS A HORIZONTAL FUNCTION

17. ORG STRUCTURE
THE GROWTH TEAM
▸ PM Growth
▸ Analyst
▸ Growth Engineer
▸ Digital marketers
▸ Specialist(s)
Zuckerberg poses with some of his deputies at Antonio’s Nut House in Palo Alto, a popular staff hangout:
Chamath Palihapitya, vice president for growth, mobile and international; Zuckerberg; Mike Schroepfer,
vice president of engineering; Jonathan Heiliger, vice president of technical operations; Chris Cox,
vice president of product.

18. IDEATE
PRIORITIZE
TEST
ANALYZE
Unbridled
Ideation
Focus
Prioritization
Rapid Testing of
Promising Ideas
Analysis
Learning
GROWTH PROCESS

19. GROWTH PROCESS
IDEAS ARE THE FUEL FOR GROWTH
▸ Full team participation (engineering,
marketing, ops, etc.)
▸ All funnel elements (AARRRR)
▸ Ideas written as hypotheses

20. GROWTH PROCESS
HYPOTHESIS QUALITY DICTATES IMPACT
▸ Data and evidence based
▸ Testable
▸ Defensible
http://mrssirilla.weebly.com/scientific-methods.html

21. GROWTH PROCESS
FOCUS & PRIORITIZATION
▸ Growth lead owns focus
(North Star, OKR, etc.)
▸ Hypotheses are scored and
sized (ICE Score)
▸ Growth team nominates
experiments for testing
Get access to Project @ http://project.growthhackers.com

22. FOCUS & PRIORITIZATION
Not throwing
spaghetti
against the wall

23. GROWTH PROCESS
PRIORITIZE FOR IMPACT
Base
Conversion
Rate
% Change
vs. Control
Required
Sample Size /
Variant
Test Days
Required
Example A 3% 5% 72,300 72
Example B 3% 10% 18,500 18
Example C 3% 30% 2,250 2
Source: Andy Johns, WMD 2015 talk

24. What is the
airspeed velocity
of an unladen
swallow?

25. ANALYSIS & LEARNING
Must learn
something on
every test

26. ANALYSIS & LEARNING
Control always
wins when
inconclusive

27. ANALYSIS & LEARNING
Learning
must be clear
& accessible

28. GROWTH PROCESS
WEEKLY GROWTH MEETING
▸ Growth team participation
▸ One full hour, regimented agenda
▸ Not time for brainstorming
▸ Similar to sprint planning / retrospective
meetings from Agile process
▸ Drives process, accountability, velocity

29. GROWTH PROCESS
GROWTH MEETING AGENDA
▸ KPI Review and Update Focus (15 min)
▸ Review last week’s testing sprint (10 min)
▸ Key lessons learned from completed/
analyzed tests (15 min)
▸ Selected tests for this week (15 min)
▸ Idea backlog review and favorites (5
min)
Get a copy of agenda doc here:
http://bit.ly/growthmtg
Get our testing template here:
http://bit.ly/experimenttemplate

30. IDEATE
PRIORITIZE
TEST
ANALYZE
Unbridled
Ideation
Focus
Prioritization
Rapid Testing of
Promising Ideas
Analysis
Learning
GROWTH PROCESS

31. IN ACTION
GROWTH PROCESS

32. SOCIAL LOGIN TEST
Original
Visitors: 3151
Conversions: 605
Conversion Rate: 19.2%
Variation 1 (w/o social sign-in)
Visitors: 3147
Conversions: 750
Conversion Rate: 23.8%
Result: With >99% confidence, the 24% improvement seen with
Variation 1 is statistically significant.

33. FUNNELTEST
Result: With >98% confidence, the 32% improvement seen with 10% variant is statistically
significant. By offering 10% discount we are increasing revenue by 18.9% over control.
10% Variant
Visitors: 4260
Conversions: 303
Conversion Rate: 7.11%
25% Variant
Visitors: 2830
Conversions: 213
Conversion Rate: 7.53%

34. PLAN TYPE TEST
Monthly at $19.99 Quarterly at $57

35. IDEATE
PRIORITIZE
TEST
ANALYZE
Unbridled
Ideation
Focus
Prioritization
Rapid Testing of
Promising Ideas
Analysis
Learning
GROWTH PROCESS

36. TAKEAWAYS
DO THIS NEXT

37. BUILD YOUR TEAM

38. REFINE PROCESS

39. AIM FOR IMPACT

40. ADD VELOCITY

41. BE A FORCE FOR
GROWTH

43. GET IN TOUCH
THANK YOU - LET’S CONNECT!
@morganb @morganb180 morganbrown.co /in/morganb