Welcome to London's first Growth Hacking blog - Growth Hacker UK Hello Growth Hacking World! I’m Liam, a London based data junkie turned growth hacker. I’ve worked for the last 15 years in and around some of the UK’s largest advertising & marketing agencies and data consultancies, helping clients use data to drive their businesses. So as I develop as a growth hacker, I’ve decided to share all the stuff I’ve found on the web, in books, conversations, first hand experience etc. (This has nothing to do with me having never done a blog before and wanting to get some first hand experience of WordPress) All contributions welcome, in fact I actively encourage them (from UK and rest of world). I’m slightly in two minds on whether to make this a .co.uk blog or open up to a larger .com audience.
What are the most important marketing strategies for a web startup Josh Elman: 'Hire a growth hacker, not a marketer' This article was taken from the June 2013 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online. In the internet bubble of the late 90s, it was common wisdom that to grow the fastest, you had to raise more money and spend more money on marketing than anyone else. In today's Silicon Valley, spending money to acquire users or customers is usually seen as a last resort instead of a go-to option. Companies such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Dropbox and Instagram have all reached over 100 million active users (Facebook over a billion), and with little to zero "traditional" paid advertising. Each of the companies listed has a dedicated team focused on building and running these programmes. In the earliest days of a company or a product, finding the path towards sustainable growth is crucial.
How to Acquire Users - Growth Insights - Quora Hello! Before you read this signup for new startup Spot - Driveway Sharing. You've built a product, now how do you get people to use it and find a sustainable source of customers? You have to experiment to see what works best for your product. The way you find your first user will differ from how you find your hundred thousandth but this doesn't matter. I faced this dilemma when trying to generate traction for my design marketplace. "Do things that don't scale." - Joe Gebbia Product is key. I've used Meetup in the past to find related events in London. ViralA great way to build a user base is to create something related and interesting and that leads the visitor to checkout your product. One example I've seen was a product built on Gmail built a tool to generate an infographic based on your email habits. Many have seen the Dollar Shave Club or Undrip videos. The old-fashioned approach is to get customers to invite their friends or add sharing to the signup flow. FreeEveryone loves free.
True Up: London based Growth Hacking consultancy UI/UX Design Patterns: What are great examples of viral UX/UI design patterns Design for a Sustainable 30% Conversion For most startups, your website will be your most valuable source of bringing on new users. While you might consider 8% a solid conversion rate for a “typical” consumer web product, imagine if you were able to double that? You’d have to try half as much to drive traffic to your page. But what if you could raise your conversion rate all the way to 30%? Don’t tell me it’s not possible, because 30% is the rate a product called BrandYourself converts new visitors on their page into members. Patrick Ambron, CEO of BrandYourself gives a lot of credit to the product’s growth to over 200,000 users to its ability to convert sustainably. What are these methods of powerful conversion? Recently, Patrick revealed some of the principles behind their heavily tested homepage at one of our recent meetups (link to actual video) in NYC. 1. The more simply you can say what your product does, and how it’s different in the main heading, the better you’ll convert. 2. 3. 4. 5. Next Steps
Minimum Viable Product: a guide One of the most important lean startup techniques is called the minimum viable product. Its power is matched only by the amount of confusion that it causes, because it's actually quite hard to do. It certainly took me many years to make sense of it. I was delighted to be asked to give a brief talk about the MVP at the inaugural meetup of the lean startup circle here in San Francisco. Below you'll find the video of my remarks as well as the full slides embedded below. First, a definition: the minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort. Some caveats right off the bat. Second, the definition's use of the words maximum and minimum means it is decidedly not formulaic. Without further ado, the video: Slides are below:
Introducing the Lean Marketing Funnel I see startups all the time that have trouble getting people to use their products. (In fact, it’s the biggest problem I see.) They usually cite some specific challenge like “we can’t get people to sign up until we have stuff on our site, but we can’t get stuff on our site until people sign up” (the chicken-egg problem) or “we need to build buzz ahead of a product launch we plan to do in a few weeks” (the how do we get buzz? If you think that’s your problem: trust me, that’s not your problem. The real problem is the way most startups think about getting new users. Most startups only ever look at three metrics: traffic, users and revenue. And then they can’t figure out why they’re not getting any users, or why the users they get don’t come back. Whenever I see a startup that can’t figure out how to get more users, I’m reminded me of a South Park episode called “Gnomes.” Claiming to be business experts, they explain their business plan as follows: Phase 1: Collect UnderpantsPhase 2: ?
Engagement loops: beyond viral There's a great and growing corpus of writing about viral loops, the step-by-step optimizations you can use to encourage maximum growth of online products by having customers invite each other to join. Today, I was comparing notes with Ed Baker (one of the gurus of viral growth). We were trying to broaden the conversation beyond just viral customer acquisition. Many viral products have flamed out over the years, able to capture large numbers of users, but proving transient in their value because they failed to engage customers for the long-term. Our goal is to understand the metrics, mechanics, and levers of engagement. Levers of engagementLet's start with the levers of engagement. Synthetic notifications. This makes intuitive sense, since the key to minimizing fatigue is to keep things new, exciting, and relevant. For example, let's say you have a viral ratio of 1.4. As you talk to customers, you notice the following dilemma. Here's what this long example is all about.
Design for a Sustainable 30% Conversion For most startups, your website will be your most valuable source of bringing on new users. While you might consider 8% a solid conversion rate for a “typical” consumer web product, imagine if you were able to double that? You’d have to try half as much to drive traffic to your page. But what if you could raise your conversion rate all the way to 30%? Patrick Ambron, CEO of BrandYourself gives a lot of credit to the product’s growth to over 200,000 users to its ability to convert sustainably. What are these methods of powerful conversion? Recently, Patrick revealed some of the principles behind their heavily tested homepage at one of our recent meetups (link to actual video) in NYC. 1. The more simply you can say what your product does, and how it’s different in the main heading, the better you’ll convert. Brandyourself’s “Improve Your Own Google Search Results” heading does this job well. 2. There are a few benefits to using CSS over an image to consider. 3. 4. 5. Next Steps
Understanding the key variables in Viral Marketing A short study of this web site reveals that a hugely important factor for success in startup companies is finding ways to acquire customers at a low cost. In the Business Models section, we looked at the perfect business model: Viral customer acquisition with good monetization. However viral growth turns out to be an elusive goal, and only a very small number of companies actually achieve true viral growth. In 2005, I invested in a company called Tabblo (acquired by HP in 2007), and had the good fortune to work with an outstanding entrepreneur, Antonio Rodriguez. To give you a preview of this post, what you will learn is that there are two key parameters that drive how viral growth happens, the Viral Coefficient, and the Viral Cycle Time. What we want to understand in these two models, is how the population of Customers changes over time. The Viral Coefficient (K) Imagine you are starting a new company that plans to acquire customers through viral growth. Lessons Learned Model Limitations
How to Find a Growth Hacker In the course of a week, I talk to about a dozen new people who are intensely interested in growing their product and bringing on a growth hacker. In each of these conversations, the all too familiar question comes up.. “How do I find a growth hacker?” Actually, screw the phrase growth hacker. I’ve heard some people call this person a “mystical unicorn.” As you might already imagined, answering the question isn’t easy. Remember when your career counselor told you to specialize? To find this person, you’ll need someone who’s deeply analytical, but can also be creative and flexible. One fun question to ask yourself is: what would Facebook do ? Well, if you look at the traits from the founder of Facebook’s growth team, Chamath Palihapitiya, you’ll notice he doesn’t exactly talk about a particular skill . In fact, what you’ve learned in only the past couple years is probably all you’ll need to start. Why? To add to that, recruiting someone earlier in their career will also probably be easier.