The best of Medium’s user acquisition and growth hacking articles
Big Brain Bob rates articles on a brain scale of 1-5
This is my collection of articles from Medium on “User Acquisition” and “Growth Hacking”. It will be updated weekly, so bookmark it. Send me suggestions on articles I’ve missed.
Articles:
User Acquisition, Virality, and Mobile: Notes from our session with Adam Nash
By GreylockVC
7 minute read
How LinkedIn grew to 150M users from a User Acquisition session hosted by Greylock.
Read if:
- You want to know the 5 sources of traffic for your project and the pros and cons of each.
- How LinkedIn optimized for mobile traffic and the value difference between browser and native app traffic.
- You want tips on measuring where user traffic originates.
- You want to hear how a successful company thought through user acquisition challenges.
Best Line:
“It’s like crack. Once you have organic traffic, you always want more.”
Early user acquisition & pivots
By James Dong
5 min read
How James built is growth strategy and target audience for an un-named idea.
Read if:
- You want to understand the difference between reaching out to 100 of your contacts and your target audience.
- What a founder’s thought process was in the earliest stages of product development
Best Line:
I realized the importance of starting a bit smaller—solving the problems people are already trying to solve for themselves today
Does your idea suck? Test user acquisition in 5 days for $37
By Hugh Plautz
12 min read
A step-by-step approach to testing an idea’s appeal to users without actually launching a product or service.
Read If:
- You want step-by-step instructions on how to test an idea.
- You want detailed links of some of the best free stuff to start user acquisition testing for an idea that isn’t yet a product or service.
- You want the bare basics knowledge of effective use of Google adwords and analytics
Best Line:
The reality is most ideas for a startup, app or service are pretty sucky.
Growth Hacking and User Acquisition for Startups and Bootstrappers
by Jane Nevins
4 min read
2o questions to ask before you start user acquisition efforts
Read If:
- You want to know what should be in your basic Growth Hacking Tool Kit.
- 20 questions to ask yourself before starting a user acquisition campaign.
Best Line:
Think of your user acquisition plan as a collection of tools that range from Easy-and-Cheap to Hard-and-Expensive.
How I used Quora for User Acquisition
by Kamil Rextin
3 min read
Read If:
- You want a super cool idea that people overlook for user acquisition.
- You want a steady stream of user acqusition traffic.
- You want to compare Quora to Reddit or Hackernews.
Personal Note: I just started using this one with decent success even after only 2 days.
Best Line:
The trick to this as with anything is to be helpful & relevant on questions relating to your product — a shameless plug in the end can be forgiven in that case.
Recipe Book-Growth Hacking
By Matti
2 min read
3 tips and some helpful links to start user acquisition
Read if:
- You want 100 growth hacks in 100 days.
- 7 ways Dropbox hacked growth
Best Line:
Growth hacking as a term is gaining more and more traction in Finland.
NOTE: You know when a term is overused in Finland it’s well….
Jon Yongfook: Not going to sugar coat this
by Colibri IO
2 min read
Q&A with the “walking encyclopedia of growth hacking.”
Read if:
- You want a link to best hands-on user acquisition tactics that you can start right away.
- You want another reason for kicking yourself in the head for not learning to code.
- You want the definition of “lifecycle marketing”
- You like that someone still uses the term encyclopedia instead of wikipedia.
Best Line:
Not going to sugar coat this: Yes. I think coding skills are a must to be a tech entrepreneur in general.
5 Growth Hacking Lessons I Learned From Lyft’s Adam Fishman
by Nate Desmond
3 min read
What Nate Desmond learned from the Director of Growth at Lyft when he visited Tradecraft.
Read if:
- You want the two key metrics to focus on for user acquisition.
- You want great 30K foot insight into user aquisition.
Best Line:
Avoid expensive experiments
The Black Belt of Reddit
by David Webber
5 min read
How marital-arts teacher (sensei?) Jordan Bill combines karate and Reddit.
Read if:
- You want a great example of using social media for niche business real-world (what is this brick and mortar?) user acquisition.
- You want a link to “Punch Drunk” Jordan’s weekly kick ass video.
- You like saying the words “Punch Drunk” (and who doesn’t).
Best Line:
It should also be mentioned that Jordan has kept this from his usual network for the early stages in order to collect pure data.
Music Marketing is Growth Hacking
2 min read
Why music marketers are the OGs (that’s original gansta’s mutha fukka to you).
Read if:
- You wonder what ingredients make up a “growth hacker.”
- You wonder who gets the credit for coining the term “growth hacking.”
Best Line:
“..[growth hacking] sounds a lot like a digital marketing overview one would see in many album release and tour announcement marketing plans.”
The Only Growth Hack You Need to Succeed on Medium
7 min read
What you need to know to about curating content on Medium.
Read if:
- You want to be a successful curator on Medium.
- You want specific actionable things you can do today to reach this goal.
- You want some decent Medium collection stats
Best Line:
…so how is it possible that I can get 10 followers overnight?
Any I missed? Let me know in a comment or a tweet @viralmatic.
