Growth

Growth hacking aka behavior shaping – not just how to grow your user base, but how to escalate those users into highly active, often revenue generating, customers. Much of this is creating that magical combination of a single action that triggers a dopamine reaction (such as the “like” action in Facebook) directly matched with an action that naturally encourages network effects (like sharing, creating content for other feeds, etc.). So a hack that was good at moving customers from free to paying in a freemium model, or a growth trigger that got new users to checking in 10+ times a day, may have more impact to a business than something that just invites new users.

Here are our Top 5 hacks for growth:

1) You’ve just been tagged in a photo on Facebook. I’m sure by just reading this sentence, you are experiencing a number of dopamine-triggering emotions. What just got posted? To whom? Who liked it? From what we’ve found, the CTR on an e-mail notification like this is in excess of 75%, and likely within minutes of receiving it. Clicking through drops you off on a new visual stimuli (the photo), which is also a great dopamine trigger. And if you see people already “liking” it, that is yet again another dopamine trigger (read Nir Ayal’s blog’s Nir and Far for info of these dopamine triggers). In summary, it sets off a cycle of dopamine stimuli that can suck hours away from you before you know it, which is the reason Facebook has such huge engagement numbers. But in the end, nothing gets people back into Facebookland than getting tagged in a photo, and at 350 Million New Photos Each DayThat is outstanding. 

2) Mr Bean just endorsed you (LinkedIn). LinkedIn is the master of using data productto create a FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) network. When they moved from “endorsements” (public endorsements of a colleague that goes right on their LinkedIn profile) to allowing others to endorse you for specific skills, it created two amazing growth hacks. First, they found a way for your network to deepen your profile for you, which goes right to their main source of income – recruiter search tools. This not only feeds their business, but means you have to keep coming back to check on how your profile is being built. Second, it creates this reciprocal desire to do the same for others, which increases the creation of this data exponentially. 238 million members and growing, revenue up 37% this year and no signs of slowing…this is growth hacking that creates both user growth and revenue. 

3) Invite a friend and get an additional 500MB of storage (Dropbox). Dropbox, Box, and other revolutionaries in the world of cloud storage figured out quickly that free storage (whether used or not) was a great trigger to invite friends. When they started offering 500MB for a referral, what feels like a huge amount (but is really quite cheap to provide), it felt like a ton of value to share and really fed their growth. The built-in network effects of cloud storage (since most storage is used to share files between disparate parties and growing digital storage needs quickly seeded a huge customer base that grew, and outgrew their storage. So even with only 4% going premium at $99/year, Dropbox is building revenue quickly, and  growth hacking helped seed a gorilla share of a valuable market quickly. 

4) This coupon is only valid if you invite 1000 friends (Groupon). Groupon was one of the fastest growing companies in the world for good reason – their core product required sharing with lots of friends to turn on. The incentive here is to invite EVERYONE who does just about ANYTHING, not just a few who do a niche thing (like Candy Crush to gamers). it’s the same reason merchants are crazy enough to offer 70%+ off even if it’s not good for business  – it reaches more users faster than any marketing to date, hands down. An amazing model for growth that was able to quickly grow out of the local market growth problem (the difficulty of taking something that works in San Francisco and recreating it in, say, NYC). Jury is still out on their long-term business model, but there is no doubt growth hacking directly into their product built the empire it is today. 

5) The Pinterest infinite scroll. Once Pinterest got their Martha Stewart on with that high quality imagery, people couldn’t get enough. The infinite scroll that allowed people to just keep seeing more and more by scrolling down the screen would not only feed the dopamine with new visual stimuli, but introduce each user to a hundreds of of other pinners, feeds, and ideas in minutes, more so than any “email your friends” hack ever could. The network effect of repinning and following so many other feeds created a cross-pinning flurry that fed their extraordinary growth, and had companies around the globe copying their infinite scroll capabilities. Their new business model of sponsored content now fits directly into this phenomenon. 

There are lots of others, no doubt, but these were the biggest ones that helped create large, profitable companies that present sustaining value to their user base.


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