3 steps to growth hacking

In recent years, the concepts of growth have emerged one after another. As the market continues to grow, growth hackers have become the new favorite among many product manager positions. However, growth is not easy. Instead of following the so-called theories on the market, it is better to delve into theory, improve practice, and constantly find a methodology that suits you and the project in practice.

How can growth be achieved?

Growth is a process of constant discovery. It is about striving to grow in an uncertain world and daring to cut until you find the core strategy and establish a certain certainty. Then, it repeats itself, like a snowball that keeps growing bigger and bigger.

What are the characteristics of snowballing? It starts small and then gets bigger and bigger.

This is also the core philosophy of first-class companies.

In 2005, shortly after Facebook was founded, someone came up with an idea to generate revenue for the company so that they could prove to investors that the company could be profitable. But the company's founder Zuckerberg disagreed. He walked to the whiteboard and wrote a big word: growth. Zuckerberg believed that the company's strategic focus at the time was user growth, which was more important than revenue. In retrospect, this was the key to Facebook's success. Let’s think about it, why do investors invest in Facebook? What they want is the imagination space for the future. They would rather invest in a money printing machine than a cash register.

So how can we achieve growth? Effective growth can be divided into three stages:

1. Growth assumptions;

2. Growth verification;

3. Massive growth.

To give an analogy, first you must have seeds before there is a possibility of growth. Because there is no way to confirm that the seeds will germinate, it is called the "growth hypothesis". This is the first stage. Then, we will start the “seedling experiment” to see which seeds can really germinate and verify the previous hypothesis. This is the second stage “growth verification”. Only after completing the first two stages can large-scale planting be carried out. This is the third stage, the real "massive growth".

In reality, it is easy to fall into two misunderstandings during these three stages:

Misconception 1: There is core but no growth.

The products are good, the service is good, but there is no way to expand. As a result, they either remained as workshops or slowly disappeared.

Misconception 2: No core, just random growth.

The seeds were not right, and large-scale planting began without any seedling experiments. Some time ago, there was a company called Starry Sky Music Store. It had strong marketing capabilities and quickly opened many chain stores. However, because its business model did not work at all, it soon went bankrupt.

In summary, growth thinking has a clear main line and is divided into three stages. When you can afford to lose, try and fail quickly and explore actively to find a sustainable and scalable growth formula.

Three steps to growth hacking

So how do we achieve growth? The author summarizes the three practical steps of "growth hacking":

1. Assumptions;

2. Verification;

3. Execution.

Step 1, hypothesis: establish a minimization loop.

Under the great requirement of growth, the first thing to do is to establish a business closed loop, and this action must first complete the minimized closed loop. Let’s take a look at the following example.

There was a large number of letters that had to be put into envelopes, sealed, addressed and stamped. what will you do?

The first method is to split the actions, pack all the mail, seal all of them, write on the addresses, and then put stamps on all of them; the second method is to complete the actions for one envelope at a time, and then complete the next one.

You might think that the first method is faster, but in reality, the second method will get the job done faster. Why?

If a letter doesn't fit into the envelope, with a large batch approach, we won't discover the problem until we're close to the end of the process. With smaller batches, we can spot problems right away. The practice of packing one envelope at a time is called "single-piece flow" in lean production, which is what we call "minimizing the closed loop". Its value lies in the ability to quickly trial and error.

Start with the stupid method, don’t be afraid of making mistakes, the cost is not high, so be brave and try it. If you want to know whether the cup is cold or hot, just reach out and touch it.

Without action, there is no way to get feedback. Every failure will serve as a step toward ultimate success. By collecting data, you won’t be so afraid of failure.

Step 2: Verification: key elements of a single indicator.

First, we can establish a feedback loop to obtain validation results.

Verification actually means confirming two things: first, obtaining a positive feedback; second, finding the key factors of a single indicator. The key factors are the core of verification. Let’s take a look at an example.

Instagram's early social functions were different from what they are now. Later, they found that users had a great demand for sharing photos, so they only retained the photo, comment and like functions, and added filters. Because Facebook is already on the market, it is difficult for multi-functional social products to stand out. The Instagram team found the most critical element, which is sharing photos, and then designed the product around photos. A few months after the change, Instagram, which focuses on social photo sharing, was officially launched. It gained 25,000 users on the first day of its launch, and this number reached 1 million three months later.

The key element of a single indicator is your key growth point. We must work to find such key elements in order to effectively implement our growth strategy.

Step 3: Execution: Design a growth strategy.

Excellent startups often adopt a phased product release strategy. For example, Facebook was first launched only at Harvard University, then at Ivy League universities, then at other universities, and finally opened to the public.

There are many benefits to phased growth. Verify customer risks before verifying technical risks. No matter how good a product is, if it is recommended to the wrong people, you may not get positive feedback. Verifying a business model does not require a large number of users. Controlling the rhythm and breaking a marathon into many 400-meter races will help the team focus more.

With this strategy, Facebook came from behind and defeated a series of competitors including MySpace. For the team, divide unrealistic tasks into reasonable small tasks. As long as you complete the small tasks every day, you will get closer and closer to the big goal.

From a mechanical point of view, the most strenuous moment for a car to start from a standstill is when it starts moving. At this time, the smaller the snowball is, the easier it is to roll. Later, the bigger the snowball is, the faster it is.

Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, said: "Magic and genius are not necessary for successful entrepreneurship. The most important thing is to use a scientific entrepreneurial process that can be learned and replicated."

Only after these three steps of hypothesis, verification and execution can we usher in real explosive growth and achieve comprehensive expansion. Only by finding a growth model that can be learned and replicated can efforts be transformed into gains, just like a snowball that gets bigger and bigger.

Author: pete

Source: pete

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