I’ve been seeing many discussions floating around lately with titles like “Are growth hackers real” and “Unicorn, the truth about growth hackers” and also some “stop lying! there’s no such thing as a growth hacker”. Allow me to end this debate - I know at least one growth hacker: me. QED, baby.
When I first sat with our CEO and was presented with the concept of growth hacking I did what anyone else would do - I googled it. Then I smiled. It was the first time in my professional life that I found a job description that fits me: the geek among marketers, the creative crazy ideas person among developers. A title that finally managed to capture what I do - an all-arounder, multidisciplinary who gets under everyone’s skin and GET SH!T DONE.
Here’s what I’ve found out in the last year of doing this job.
A growth hacker is a person with a diversified skill set who doesn’t let conventions and disciplines stop her from testing and trying something new every day.
Let me give you some examples of the things I did lately:
- Some hardcore A/B testing of landing pages (web vs. mobile, if you must know.)
- Standard progress in off-site ASO and some organic SEO (moving along smoothly according to plan.)
- Created a new angle for a bloggers outreach.
- Planned next week’s push notifications by population and KPIs.
- Reviewed the data scheme so it would fit better with our future plans. (Shhhhh…)
- Wireframed a new “share” feature for the product.
- Ran a “crazy-will-never-work-ideas” meeting with some of my colleagues. (35 ideas in 50 minutes.)
- Found a workaround to some important data by connecting different APIs of 3rd party services
- Gave a quick and dirty 1.5 hour course of SQL to non-programmers. (Read about how we do our data, it’s super interesting.)
- Gave my input on the script of our new product video.
- Analyzed retention for our brilliant VP Product based on different on-boarding scenarios.
- Composed and played some of our users reviews on Ukelele.
- Had a lot of coffee.
So, what do you need in order to be a growth hacker?
You need to come with an already packed “utility bag” and start adding at least one new skill a week. Do things hands-on, it’s the only way to get better. Your job title states you’re a hacker — if you’re not breaking down walls and challenging the way of doing thing, you’re doing it wrong.
And when it starts taking you 30 minutes to cross the shared workspace or the 5 meters between the CTO’s door and the kitchen — you’ll know you’re doing it right.
Now, a challenge for you - if after you’ve read this post you can find me a better title — I promise to re-do my business card.
