Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer On The Future of PR, Marketing and Advertising — Book Notes

Ryan Holiday

Published: 2014

• Growth hackers are the new VPs of marketing
• In the absence of big budgets, start-ups learnt how to hack the system to build their companies
• The hacking rethought marketing from the ground up, without the baggage of old assumptions of traditional marketer
• A growth hacker doesn’t see marketing as something one does, but rather as something one builds into the product
• The product is then kick-started, shared and optimized.

What is growth hacking?

• The end goal of every growth hacker is to build a self-perpetuating marketing machine that reaches millions by itself
• Traditional marketers tend to treat product launches like blockbuster movie premiers, i.e huge launches, major media coverage etc.
• Traditional marketers also dangerously assume that they need to get as many customers as possible in a short window of time
• If it doesn’t work right away, the whole thing is a failure

A New Way

• Growth hacking first started when Hotmail added: “P.S I Love You. Get…