Growth Hacking is all the rage. Everyone in marketing, product marketing, product management, and even software development and design... not to mention those in specific marketing disciplines like AdWords / PPC ads, inbound marketing, content marketing, and the like all now self identify as Growth Hackers. And that's wonderful since I believe Growth Hacking - if not the term, certainly the concept and core tenets - is here to stay. But, to approach this rather catch-as-catch-can style of marketing, where there a lot of guidelines... I've come up with 5 rules that I think must be in place for Growth Hacking to work. I hope this helps you Hack your Growth!

1. 5 Rules for Successful
Growth Hacking
by SaaS Marketing expert and Growth Hacker
Lincoln Murphy of Sixteen Ventures

2. Growth Hacking is Meaningless?
• Growth Hacking is all the rage right now. In-fact, anyone
even slightly involved with marketing or product
development in tech companies now calls themselves a
Growth Hacker.
• Once everyone identifies as a Growth Hacker the term
will be meaningless…
• But what goes into Growth Hacking (or whatever it’s
called in the future) will persist and in-fact, is
transforming an industry right now.
Copyright© 2014 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.

3. Growth Hacking Defined
• I generally describe Growth Hacking as a mindset that revolves
around leveraging your understanding of customer and user
behavior, market dynamics, and what’s technically possible – or
should be – and using your imagination to put it all together to
drive growth.
• But what does that really mean?
• Well, that’s why I wanted to go deeper on that definition, if only
for my own clarification, though I hope you find value in it as
well…
• First, you need to…
Copyright© 2014 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.

4. 1. Know What Growth You’re Hacking
• According to Sean Ellis, a Growth Hacker is someone who’s “true north”
is Growth.
• But that leaves a lot of room for interpretation, which is actually good.
• And while some people will claim Growth Hacking has nothing to do with
Revenue growth, I’m callin’ BS on that.
• The definition of Growth and the metrics to measure it are 100% unique
to the enterprise seeking that growth.
• So whether you’re looking to drive sign-ups, revenue, engagement,
retention, or even viral expansion, just know which one you’re focused on
and make it happen.
• And to do that in a big way you have to understand that…
Copyright© 2014 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.

5. • This presentation is based on my popular “5 Rules for
Successful Growth Hacking” post... you can find a lot
more detail on the techniques and ideas presented
here:
• http://sixteenventures.com/growth-hacking-rules
• The presentation really gets good on the next slide ☞
Copyright© 2014 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.
Presentation Source

6. 2. Social Engineering > Technical Engineering
• If you build something without first having a good understanding of
why humans do what they do – both on a general level and in the
context of your chosen environment – you’re likely to be met with
limited success.
• If you spend as much time (or more) studying human behavior and
psychology as you do the latest marketing and growth hacking
tactics you’ll actually be more successful when you implement
those tactics.
• In fact, understanding human behavior in the context of what it is
your app does will actually help you identify the best tactics –
growth hacking or otherwise – to leverage.
Copyright© 2014 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixtenventures.com/

7. 2. Social Engineering > Technical Engineering
• The best Growth Hackers understand that it isn’t about their
product or service… it’s about the user and the customers.
• It’s about understanding their behavior and exploiting that for
gain, sure, but it only works if it is in the context of them…. not
you.
• In fact, understanding how Social Engineering fits in, you can
start to figure out how to…
Copyright© 2014 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixtenventures.com/

8. 3. Exploit Organic Network Effects
• Sometimes Network Effects are obvious… and sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes true
network effects require massive scale… and sometimes we can take advantage of micro-
networks to scale our business massively.
• Rarely can you force “network effects” where they don’t exist naturally. But often you can
exploit, extrapolate, or otherwise leverage even the weakest network effects if you just try.
• Which is why those in the “know” saying B2B SaaS apps can’t go “viral” makes me
angry… I guarantee it caused at least a few people to stop looking for ways to make that
happen. Well, as it turns out, humans who work with other humans do certain things in
certain ways.
• When they work with their team members, co-workers, subordinates, their boss,
corporate leaders, colleagues at partner organizations, counterparts at vendors or
customers, etc. they have certain patterns.
• more...
Copyright© 2014 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixtenventures.com/

9. 3. Exploit Organic Network Effects
• And careful observation of those patterns – and an understanding of why they exist both
functionally and psychologically – is the key to rapid growth in market-share (macro) and
mind-share (micro).
• When I work with my clients to rapidly and sustainably grow their B2B SaaS businesses,
while we might not ever reach the the level of Facebook or Twitter in terms of Viral
Coefficient (this is what I’m talking about when I say Orchestrated Virality, BTW), we can
reach a level of growth potentially unheard of in their product category simply by
identifying these natural, organic actions that occur within a network.
• Then, through social and technical engineering, we exploit those in a positive way for gain
• Simple.
• Not Easy… but simple.
• Another thing to remember is that…
Copyright© 2014 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixtenventures.com/

10. 4. Growth Hacking isn’t Free
• Look, even if the tactic you use has no per unit cost (i.e. media buys), Growth
Hacking can be very time-consuming, and time is money.
• It’s very common for people to not value their time – and not just in startups, BTW
– so you need to know that Growth Hacking even via “free” channels is not free.
• That said, Growth Hacking is not only about free channels. In fact, to ignore
channels that – if used properly – could accelerate growth simply because there’s
a hard cost associated with them seems to be the antithesis of Growth Hacking.
• Sure, spending money is also the antithesis of the “bootstrap = charity case”
crowd, but for real businesses that understand the value in acquiring customers,
seeding networks, and orchestrating vitality, investing money to grow makes
sense.
• But overall…
Copyright© 2014 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixtenventures.com/

11. 5. A Culture of Growth is Required
• By now there are 100s of posts and several books about the famous Growth
Hacks out there – Hotmail, Paypal, AirBnb, etc. – and everyone talks about
the one gimmick that worked for each.
• Hotmail’s PS they added to every email sent that helped them spread virally,
PayPal and Airbnb seeding both sides of their respective models with bots
and social engineering through eBay and Craiglist respectively.
• In a week there’ll be 100 more posts talking about those same examples.
Copyright© 2014 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixtenventures.com/

12. 5. A Culture of Growth is Required
• Unfortunately, few people take the time to really understand the companies that
employed these tactics. They don’t understand that it wasn’t just those Growth
Hacks – in a vacuum – that worked.
• Yes, those were successful tactics, but those tactics were utilized by
companies with a culture for growth. Those companies had a true north of
“Growth.” … not just an individual within the organization.
• In fact, those very same tactics executed in a culture that isn’t defined by
growth, doesn’t share the mindset characteristics leveraged by Growth
Hackers (and outlined in this essay), would likely fail. In fact, I’ve seen them
fail… miserably.
• The “Growth Hacks” become just another random marketing tactic that failed.
Onto the next one.
Copyright© 2014 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixtenventures.com/

13. 5. A Culture of Growth is Required
• Growth Hacking should not be considered a quick fix in most cases… it will
often require an organizational shift.
• In fact, an organization not aligned for growth, or one that lacks the necessary
freedoms in place to allow the use of the agile (lowercase a) methodologies
necessary to monitor, manage, and iterate on tactics, is a poor fit for Growth
Hacking in my experience.
• While I contend Growth Hacking is not a startup-only phenomenon, this
cultural requirement is more often found in early and growth-stage (obviously)
companies that aren’t just okay with taking calculated, small bets (risks), they
encourage it. “How else do you move the needle?” they’d ask. Indeed.
Copyright© 2014 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixtenventures.com/

14. 5. A Culture of Growth is Required
• However, in risk-averse organizations – generally older, larger companies, but
not always – where the mentality is to just keep the status quo and avoid
mistakes, missteps, and general boat-rocking… Growth Hacking will have a
hard time finding a home and will probably end up as just another failed
exercise.
• While Growth Hacking is often introduced and even driven from the bottom-
up, the most successful Growth Hacks take place in organizations with a top-
down, growth-focused leadership.
Copyright© 2014 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved. http://sixtenventures.com/

15. Copyright© 2014 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.
Presentation Source
• This presentation is based on my popular “5 Rules for
Successful Growth Hacking” post... you can find a lot
more detail on the techniques and ideas presented
here:
• http://sixteenventures.com/growth-hacking-rules

16. Thank You!
• Lincoln Murphy
• Sixteen Ventures
• lincoln@sixteenventures.com
• http://sixteenventures.com
• @lincolnmurphy
Copyright© 2014 Lincoln Murphy. All Rights Reserved.