Turning our people into Growth Hacking Ninjas

By Fiona Li and Zach Romain

“Growth Hacker” is not just another fancy title to replace marketer or product engineer.

The Rise of Growth Hacker

The ever-changing internet economy, digital marketing landscape, and user perception of products and brands have led to changes in operating principles and structure in many technology companies. As Skyscanner adopted new ways of working, we discovered the need for a different type of talent; growth hacking skills to contribute to continued the growth of the business.

What is a ‘Growth Hacker’? The objective of a growth hacker is to grow the number of users and revenue of a specific product (usually internet based) and to make strategy and tactical decisions based on growth. They are creative in nature, yet use scientific approaches to uncover insights and optimise growth opportunities to achieve sustainable growth. They are T-shaped people who not only have a growth hacking mentality, but also product engineering, marketing, and data analytics fundamental skill sets.

Launching the Growth Hacking Ninja Certification Programme

Skyscanner launched the Growth Hacking Ninja Certification Programme internally to up-skill our marketers and engineers and to train new growth hires. The structure of the program aligns closely with the principles of the T-shaped growth marketer suggested by Sean Ellis. This course has been developed in-house by subject matter experts across 32 different topics relating to Marketing, Programming and Data Analysis. This has been an iterative approach to ensure that we have validated the programme to be in line with how Growth Hacking has shaped our business. This program has already been shortlisted for the HR National Award Network’s Learning and Development Award of the year in 2016.

What does that mean for marketers and product engineers?

Marketers have to be more product-driven and analytical. Instead of creating huge campaigns based on an idea, growth marketers create campaigns with ideas validated by multiple smaller experiments. Instead of measuring the campaign effectiveness with dubious attribution model, growth marketers run A/B tests in user communications (content and channels) to measure the impact of key metrics of each and every element. Marketers have the control to improve the user experience with the product.
 
Engineers, on the other hand, build products with the focus on achieving product market fit, i.e., products that satisfy the market by addressing the users’ problems. Growth engineers build products to enable users to understand and experience the core value of the business, for example, building better onboarding experiences and creating inherent virality that could enhance the initial traction of a product. Activation and retention metrics are also important for growth engineers.

Growth at Skyscanner

Skyscanner has experienced double digit growth over the past consecutive seven years. Such an achievement could not be possible without internal efforts to transform our company’s operation and people.
 
Organizing ourselves into tribes and squads cross-product and marketing teams to break down functional silos, adopting the Skyscanner growth hacking way and launching the Growth Hacking Ninja Certification Programme early this year are just a few initiatives that support the growth of the business and our people.
 
Do you want to be part of our growth journey and contribute to more exciting initiatives? Join us at Skyscanner. Start by checking out our latest Marketing and Product Growth jobs to see what we can offer.

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About the authors

Hi, my name is Fiona Li and I work in the Growth Strategy Squad and Innovation & Emerging Technique Squad in the Central Growth Tribe. I have recently embarked on my second year working at Skyscanner and have been fortunate to be part of the global transformation and lead on multiple growth initiatives including the Growth Hacking Ninja Certification Program. Moving from being a social media analyst, growth agile coach and to a new role as the growth strategy manager, I am thrilled to be on this exciting journey with Skyscanner and to see where I’m going to be next.

Hi, I’m Zach Romain and I’m a Senior Consultant for the Learning and Leadership Squad in the Internal Growth Tribe here at Skyscanner. I’ve been with with Skyscanner since the beginning of 2016 and lead the Growth Hacker Programme from a learning perspective. I am passionate about learning and looking forward to see how this programme grows and shapes Skyscanner’s growth strategy.