What You Should Learn From Classic Growth Hacking Strategies

The basic tenet of growth hacking is to quickly and iteratively test customer acquisition strategies and tactics and replicate what works. Whether you are a startup or a large entity, B2B or B2C, this process can be customized and integrated into a successful business growth strategy.

But before that, the lessons of the past must be learned. These are some significant findings to make by studying the classic growth hacking tactics of the biggest and probably the most well-known startups in business history.

Feel free to freeride on other products (but don’t push it!)

The textbook growth hacking example brought by Airbnb. In the platform’s early days, when users wanted to publish BnB listing on the corporate website, Airbnb sent them a post link via email. The listing would also appear on the local Craigslist as the user proceeded with it.

Then, any clicks on Craigslist would link the newcomers with the original Airbnb posting.

Thus, Airbnb marketers revealed a gap in Craigslist’s UX architecture and got access to the existing huge user base. That traffic triggered Airbnb’s insanely rapid growth even before Craiglist managed to shut the opportunity.

Dive into details overlooked by the market

A huge part of Uber’s successful UA strategy was brilliant word-of-mouth advertising and PR promoting the simplicity of their service over traditional taxi services. Also, the company made great publicity using its legal battles to win customers.

But the real growth hack belongs to the tech field.

Company engineers used such seemingly insignificant factors as nightlife, events, weather, and the current availability of other taxi services to build the unique pricing system. By doing so, they guaranteed that the customers would get the most relevant location-based offer and use the service again.

Stop relying on existing markets only

Slack reinvented corporate communication. At the time, the issues of information overload, ineffective teams, and tense work settings were not booming, so the company created and started selling software solution to problem people didn’t even know they had. Instead of building a competitive product, they built the market and insured the new tool was needed.

Do not neglect the good old hacks

Referral strategies work if the product marketing team knows how to apply them thoroughly. Dropbox and Paypal cases proove it.

Dropbox integrated the referral program into the onboarding process. People could invite their contacts with just a few clicks by connecting them to Google and Facebook.

And what Paypal did is… Well, they actually paid users to sign up, giving the referring and new costumer 10$ each. The company found out that its customer LTV was bigger than $20, so it made perfect sense to invest in its own referral system. That’s why PayPal spent close to $60 million on this growth hack before it was phased out.

Each and every business has its specifics, but they have similarities at the same time. Do you run an innovative tech startup? We are investing in early-stage revenue-generating software startups across the world and would love to hear from you! You can reach us at info@leta.vc.

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