Growth Hacking dissected: snake oil or worth a try?
We are so accustomed to new business buzzwords that we treat them like fashion. “Oh, there’s a new one this Spring. Is it any good? What happened to the old ones? Wow, I didn’t know that it became so popular. Should I look more into this new thing, then?” Which brings us to growth hacking.
Should you try it out, or perhaps stick to proven, traditional thinking?
How is growth hacking different from the other novel phenomena competing for your attention, such as design thinking, agile principles, or the lean start-up movement?
Like many fresh and fashionable marvels, growth hacking is a slippery soap to grab. Is it a mindset, a job description, a way of working, or a set of tools? Nevertheless, to an academic analytical mind, it has certain characteristics that are worth further examination. And these characteristics give insights into whether growth hacking is something to pay attention to or just yet-another-snake- oil poured down your throat.
So, put on your lab coat, clean your microscope and let’s have a closer look.
Some fashionable phenomena have the problem that they don’t speak the language of business. For example, design thinking and agile principles have always struggled to be taken seriously as a strategic business approach.
To put it bluntly, executives and strategy consultants treat ‘design’ and ‘agile’ like a younger sibling: cute but naïve, slightly annoying in their strong belief, and when it comes to serious business stuff, please leave the room and let the adults talk.
So what about growth hacking?
Growth hacking doesn’t have this problem. The premise of growth hacking is growing business: sales, customers, revenue, engagement, profitability and so on. Also, unlike agility, growth is a word that any business executive can easily relate to.
And growth hacking is not only hollow talk, it can also walk the walk. Growth hacking is all about reaching a predefined business objective via tactical interventions bundled with relevant analytics and data. Growth hacking means business and nothing extra. Therefore, as a new way of working and thinking, it has great chances of being adopted as a straightforward and honest business paradigm.
Why hasn’t growth hacking had its big break yet? What took so long?
The fuel and fodder for growth hacking is digital footprints. Whether we’re consumers, citizens, or businesses, our behaviour generates and leaves behind digital footprints all over the Internet. And it’s only now in the 2010s that we as a society have transferred the majority of our behaviour into online data. It is this data that enables the growth hacker to track our behaviour, hack an intervention and gauge the potential change.
Which brings me to the word, ‘hacking.’ This single word is rich in meaning. Traditionally ‘hacker’ means a tech-savvy independent programmer who uses whatever means to achieve her objective. A hacker is the nimble and radical Robin Hood of the digital world. In other words, a hacker is an underdog who embraces frugality (“We don’t have the resources of the big players”), accepts trial and error (“We lost this battle, but we learned a lot!”), bows to no one (“We shall break the silos if need be, and to hell with the outdated governance models!”) and values the clarity of objectives (“The only thing that matters is impact!”).
And we only need to look around us to see that talented hack- ers can make a significant impact in our digital and data-rich world. It’s this hacker mindset that can be seen in successful technology start-ups and global social media phenomena. But the same hacker mindset can also be spotted in information warfare and cyber terrorism. These malicious activities underline the power behind the mindset and approach, although growth hacking in this book is naturally all about legal and benevolent business growth.
Time to lift our heads from the microscope and summarise
Growth hacking as a mindset and phenomenon is happening as we speak. It is the child of the digital and data-rich world, and therefore, it fits our digital age like a glove. Which means, that it also suits the objectives and strategies of digital business as well.
As an academic, I see growth hacking as a fitting term that captures a lot of abstract concepts under one umbrella: a mindset, a set of tools, a way to re-organise work, a new blend of skills, and perhaps even a re-distribution of power to influence and affect people’s thinking and behaviour.
I encourage you to invest your time in learning more about growth hacking. Start by reading, e.g., Columbia Road’s Growth Hacker’s Handbook. You can read it as a hands-on practitioner’s guidebook, or you can read it as a representation of contemporary thinking in which practice meets strategy.
Either way, growth hacking will make an impact in your world. Because, at the end of the day, that is what it is all about.
P.S. We are running a course on growth hacking at Aalto University’s Information Networks programme. The lectures are open to the public at CS building, Konemiehentie 2, T6 class room, Mondays 14:15–16:00:
28.1. Game Marketing & growth hacking by Mika Levo.
4.2. Enterprise growth hacking by Matti Liski.
11.2. Information Warfare by Mikko Hyppönen.
18.2. Summary & wrap up by Eero Martela & Risto Sarvas
This text was first published as a prologue to the above-mentioned Growth Hacker’s Handbook by Columbia Road.
