The document provides an overview of growth hacking presented by Matt Lerner. It begins with introductions and Lerner's background. It then discusses the origins and definitions of growth hacking, emphasizing acquisition, activation, retention and referrals. Lerner presents the growth hacking process as asking key questions around goals, metrics, customer understanding, system understanding, idea generation, and testing. He stresses the growth hacking mindset of embracing failure, thinking scientifically and artistically, being curious, optimistic, tenacious and irreverent. The conclusion is that growth hacking is a real discipline focused on the entire customer funnel through a process-driven and questioning approach.

1. Growth Hacking 101
Matt Lerner

2. About Me
§ 17 years Marketing & GM at PayPal
and 3 startups (not Adobe)
§ Built & ran 3 Growth teams
§ Mentored over 40 startups
§ 500 Startups Distro team in London
§ Early jobs as a chemist, speech writer,
ham salesman and valet parking
attendant.
http://twitter.com/matthlerner
http://500.co/team/matt-lerner/

3. Agenda
§ Introductions (Done)
§ Background
§ Case Study
§ The Process
§ The Mindset
§ Conclusion
§ Q&A

4. Is Growth Hacking Bullshit?

5. Is Growth Hacking Bullshit?
§ Hotmail
§ PayPal
§ Twitter
§ YouTube
§ Dropbox
§ Facebook
§ LinkedIn
§ Air BnB
§ Zynga
§ LivingSocial
§ Instagram
§ MoveOn.org
§ Pinterest
§ MySpace
§ Hubspot
§ Mint.com
§ Groupon
§ Whatsapp
§ Snapchat
§ Meerkat
§ Quora

6. Origins of the Term
Sean Ellis
Marketer & Entrepreneur
Coined the term in 2010
Andrew Chen
Blogger & Marketer
Popularized the term in 2012

7. Defining “Growth” and “Hacking”
“Growth hackers are a hybrid of marketer and coder,
one who looks at the traditional question of ‘How do I
get customers for my product?’
Andrew Chen

8. Growth: Make Hockey Sticks
Acquire
(Signups)
Ac/vate
(Users)
Ac/vity
(Engaged
Users)
Reten/on
(Churn)
Referrals
Revenue
Magic
Moment
Like a Pirate
“AAARRRGH!”

9. Defining “Hacking”
“A hacker is one who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively
overcoming and circumventing limitations of systems.”
Verna
Gehring,
The
Internet
in
Public
Life
Marina Gorbis, Harvard Business Review
“Things are hack-able — the way we’ve designed various systems is
not pre-ordained or immutable.We can tinker, re-design, and play with
them.” … [Hackers] “don’t ask for permission to do what they do…
They are less interested in technologies per se than in playing with
established ways of doing things and conventional ways of thinking,
creating, learning, and being.”

10. Growth Hacking
§ A collection of tactics
§ Focused on getting clicks, views or signups
Growth Hacking is a mindset and a process
that run deep into the funnel.

11. The Process – Key Questions
1. Clarify your goals
2. Choose your key metric
3. Understand your customer &
product market fit
4. Understand the system
5. Generate Ideas
6. Test & Iterate

12. The Process – Key Questions
1. Clarify your goals
2. Choose your key metric
3. Understand your customer &
product market fit
4. Understand the system
5. Generate Ideas
6. Test & Iterate
1. What is our end goal?
2. Where should we focus first?

13. The Process – Key Questions
1. Clarify your goals
2. Choose your key metric
3. Understand your customer &
product market fit
4. Understand the system
5. Generate Ideas
6. Test & Iterate
1. Can it be measured quickly?
2. Deep enough in the funnel?
3. Does this create perverse
incentives?
4. Causation or correlation?
5. Right level of precision?
6. Is it clear, simple and
memorable?

14. The Process – Key Questions
1. Clarify your goals
2. Choose your key metric
3. Understand your customer &
product market fit
4. Understand the system
5. Generate Ideas
6. Test & Iterate
1. Where do they get information?
2. What’s their decision process?
3. What are their pain points?
4. How do they experience your
product or service?
PMF:“The Sean Ellis Test”
1. Do people love using this?
2. Why?

15. The Process – Key Questions
1. Clarify your goals
2. Choose your key metric
3. Understand your customer &
product market fit
4. Understand the system
5. Generate Ideas
6. Test & Iterate
1. What are people’s incentives
and how do we align with them?
2. Are there 80/20’s or network
effects you can exploit?
3. Where are the viral loop
opportunities?
4. Any existing two-sided
platforms we can scale on?
(e.g. eBay, Craigslist, Facebook)

16. The Process – Key Questions
1. Clarify your goals
2. Choose your key metric
3. Understand your customer &
product market fit
4. Understand the system
5. Generate Ideas
6. Test & Iterate
1. What are the right channels?
2. Is the onboarding experience
frictionless?
3. Where can you add virality?
4. Who else has done something
like this before, and how?

17. The Process – Key Questions
1. Clarify your goals
2. Choose your key metric
3. Understand your customer &
product market fit
4. Understand the system
5. Generate Ideas
6. Test & Iterate
1. Which test(s) should we run?
(Biggest impact, crazy stuff)
2. What worked well?
3. What surprised us?
4. Which numbers do and don’t
make intuitive sense?
5. Are we measuring this right?
6. What new hypotheses emerge?
7. What should we test next?

18. The Mindset
§ Fucks up constantly: 2/3 of tests fail. Failure à learning! Embrace failure!
§ It’s a science: Systematic thinker, curious, keen observers, understands
experimental design, causation and correlation.
§ It’s an art: Obsessed with simplifying the customer journey.
§ Systems thinker: Use existing momentum, find the lever points.Always
looking for the 80/20’s or better.
§ Curious: Ask a lot of questions, ask great questions.
§ Optimistic: Comfortable with ambiguity, hopeful but not patient.
§ Irreverent: Cross-disciplinary, would sooner ask forgiveness than
permission. (Move fast, break things).
§ Tenacious: Persistent with a bias towards action.

19. Conclusions
§ This is definitely a thing. But…
§ Many of the best are not marketers
§ Includes the whole (pirate) funnel
§ Much of the action is in the middle of the funnel
§ Not tactics, it’s a process and a mindset
– Art and a science, causation & correlation
– Understand customers & system, look for angles & leverage
§ Don’t just hustle, work smart

20. Any Questions?