Defining A Growth Hacker: Growth Is Not A Marketing Strategy

In this series titled ?Defining a growth hacker,? I will be exploring the meaning and practical application of growth hacking through a number of interviews with prominent growth hackers. This is the third post of the series on product. You can find the first post on common characteristics here and growth hacking?s impact on marketing here. ?Viral marketing is not a marketing strategy,? Andrew Chen wrote back in 2007. ?Successful viral products don?t have viral marketing bolted on once the product has been developed. It?s not a marketing strategy. Instead, it?s designed into the product from the very beginning as part of the fundamental architecture of the experience.? While growth hacking has changed the worldview of many great marketers, growth hackers are also rethinking and redesigning the way products are developed and analyzed. Today, successful growth implementation starts at the product level because growth hacking at its core is a product-based role. A growth hacker is a product-based role for four reasons: growth hacking is a sub-specialty of both marketing and product, engagement is central to growth hackers, growth is a form of product ?R&D,? and growth hackers are empowered in a product role. Growth as a sub-specialty Growth is a blend of both marketing and product. While both specialties contain a partial growth perspective, growth hacking is a sub-specialty with the sole focus on pushing metrics and designing outcomes around growth. Matt Humphrey, co-founder of HomeRun, explained that growth hacking is not a new role that fits within marketing. ?It?s an entire product and business level understanding of what drives users to the product, back to the product, and into their wallets,? said Humphrey. Growth hackers have a much deeper technical understanding of product as it relates to marketing. This technical and scientific perspective on marketing pushes for a different attitude towards distribution and getting in front of customers. ?Growth hacking is definitely more than direct marketing, quantitative analysis, and engineering,? said Jesse Farmer, co-founder of Everlane. ?For example, Tumblr just updated their API to permit user-to-user following via HTTP POST. That sentence is a Bat Signal for any growth hacker but probably means nothing to the average marketer.? On product, growth hackers zero in on the distribution and engagement side of product. Growth hackers are ?syncing with product teams to ensure the product is built around distribution or core features are put in place with distribution as a

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