2. A brief history
Head of Growth @
Growth Hacker @
Organizer @ GROWTHATHON
Member of
Writer @
#growthhackchi @aginnt
3. What we are going to cover
• Instilling a culture of growth
• Growth team or growth hacker
• Prioritization
• Day-to-day
• Possible pitfalls
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5. Growth comes from culture
Culture- the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and
practices that characterizes an institution,
organization or group.
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6. Primary goal
Steepen the learning curve.
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7. Growth = culture
To grow most companies need a
culture change.
How easy is it to change culture?
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8. Analyze your culture
Ask these questions of yourself, then ask your
team.
• What do you value?
• What do you focus on?
• What do you hold people accountable for?
• How do you solve problems?
• How do you allocate resources?
• How do you know if you are successful or not?
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9. Analyze your culture (2)
Ask these questions of yourself, then ask your
team.
• What do you value? Growth
• What do you focus on? Everything but growth
• What do you hold people accountable for? Feelings
• How do you solve problems? Panic & derail everyone
• How do you allocate resources? My mood
• How do you know if you are successful or not?
Another round of funding
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10. Culture Change
Three steps to change your culture
1. Why
• Set a vision
2. What
• List the milestones
3. How
• Operationalize with some teeth (7 to 1 rule)
• Address important areas that are changing
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11. Common Characteristics
• High performance with right culture
• Metrics valued
• Death to lore
• Agnostic on the method, religious on the metric
• Intensity about winning
• Agile process
• Testing then production
• Transparency
• Focus
• Delivering user value, always
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12. Reality check
Culture is how you live and work, not a
presentation.
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13. Who?
To be a growth hacker or not to be? That is
the question.
14. Growth hackers are not growth teams
Growth hacker Growth team
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15. The difference
Growth hacker Growth team
• Broad skills • Specialized roles
• ASAP • Process
• Grey area • Focus on culture
• Guerilla tactics • Black and white
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16. How to choose?
• State of the company
• Size of the entire team
• Market competition
• Potential market opportunity
• Expected/ realized growth curve
• Every company culture is unique
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19. Four areas of focus
1. Acquisition
2. Activation
3. Engagement
4. Virality
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20. Four areas of focus
1. Acquisition
2. Activation
3. Engagement
4. Virality This will lead you down
a dark path
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21. Four areas of focus
1. 2.
3. 4.
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22. Metaphysics of growth
Get to the “magic moment” as fast as
possible!
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23. The magic moment
a “magic moment” is a defining point that
marks a separation in future user behavior.
demonstrate user value proposition
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25. The growth mentality
1. Track: Figure out what needs to be tracked and track it.
2. Understand: Delve into the data to understand how people are using the
product.
3. Prioritize: Evaluate and prioritize the areas most likely to yield growth.
(tweaks, re-architected features, new features)
4. Design: Design features that are likely to yield growth and estimate
impact.
5. Build: Code and deploy.
6. Measure: Gauge success of new features.
Repeat 1, 2, or 3, adjusting strategy based on the results.
via Mike Greenfield (500 startups)
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26. Product
• Follow a sprint schedule with a retro.
• Varied risk of the growth bets each sprint.
• Develop a method of resolving conflicts among
team.
• Deploy, don’t dither.
• Adjust sprint iterations based on what you learn
to keep momentum up.
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27. Product (2)
• A product manager’s role
• Leader of the growth team
• User testing
• Communicates data and goals
• Organizes teams to move forward
• Coordinator around dependencies
• Planning
• UX considerations
• Flow analysis
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28. Data
• Develops user behavior models.
• Keeps track of important metrics.
• Explores new theories on user behavior.
• Categorizes users and visitors.
• Assures proper instrumentation and
measurement.
• Assures moving the metric.
• Calls out lore.
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29. Marketing
• Create a sprint model for marketing.
• Process
• theory
• test cheaply
• results
• iterate
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30. Marketing (2)
• Pour water acquisition process (CAG vs. LTV).
• Works with growth team on inbound strategies.
• Optimizes product messaging.
• Develops the PR strategy.
• Enforces user empathy.
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Culture reflects what you value as a company What you value is where you focus resourcesMost successful companies at growth value it deeply“At Facebook, we talked about nothing but growth for three years.” - Chamath PalihapitiyaGrowth experts need a large amount social capital and trust at all levels to thrive
It is not easy to change culture
Jack Welch used the mantra of "speed, simplicity, and self-confidence" as the beacon for his transformation of GE's culture in the 1990’sSet a visionHow will this impact our current culture?What are the milestonesFollow up with how we are measuring importanceGet agreement from all levelsSupport it with a change in business operationsAdd some teeth
sprints – weekly or dailyDevelop a method of resolving conflictsTestMetrocracyAdjust for learnings (insert new ideas only if related to current sprint, no new features!)
Develops models on growth team’s iterations to measure retention and effect on moving the metric
Some people cannot handle the growth mentality (distraction or feel lost, especially product related)Engineers get distracted by the next big feature build, not goodMost products Not everything you do is growth orientedsome products are 100% growth related if they are a communication or social product
product people can freak out when they measure against a new measure, not feeling but gut
There is a cost to AB tests
Jesse Farmer – “I happy to be wrong because at least I know I am wrong”Don’t put your social capital in your ideas but in the process