We all want to do more with less. For marketers and entrepreneurs, that paradox is practically our job description. Well, in this book, we’re going to look at how growth hackers have helped companies like Dropbox, Mailbox, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, Snapchat, Evernote, Instagram, Mint.com, AppSumo, and StumbleUpon do so much with essentially nothing.
What stunned me most about those companies was that none of them were built with any of the skills that traditional marketers like myself had always considered special, and most were built without the resources I’d long considered essential. I couldn’t name the “marketer”—and definitely not the agency—responsible for their success because there wasn’t one. Growth hacking had made “marketing” irrelevant, or at the very least it had completely rewritten its best practices.
Whether you’re currently a marketing executive or a college grad about to enter the field—the first growth hackers have pioneered a new way. Some of their strategies are incredibly technical and complex. The strategies also change constantly; in fact, occasionally it might work only one time. This book is short because it sticks with the timeless parts. I also won’t weigh you down with heavy concepts like “cohort analysis” and “viral coefficients.”* Instead, we will focus on the mindset—it’s far and away the most important part.
I start and end with my own experiences in this book, not because I am anyone special but because I think they illustrate a microcosm of the industry itself. The old way—where product development and marketing were two distinct and separate processes—has been replaced. We all find ourselves in the same position: needing to do more with less and finding, increasingly, that the old strategies no longer generate results.
So in this book, I am going to take you through a new cycle, a much more fluid and iterative process. A growth hacker doesn’t see marketing as something one does but rather as something one builds into the product itself. The product is then kick-started, shared, and optimized (with these steps repeated multiple times) on its way to massive and rapid growth. The chapters of this book follow that structure.
Praise:
"An invaluable tool for ad executives, engineers, and entrepreneurs alike." —Nir Eyal, author of Hooked
"Finally, a crystallization and explanation of growth hacking in easy-to-understand terms—and better, real strategies and tactics for application." —Alex Korchinski, growth hacker at Scribd
"Growth hackers are the new VPs of marketing, and this book tells you how to make the transformation." —Andrew Chen, Silicon Valley entrepreneur, essayist, and startup advisor
“Forget everything you thought you knew about marketing and read this book. And then make everyone you work with read it too.” —Jason Harris, CEO of Mekanism
About Author:
Ryan Holiday is one of the world's foremost thinkers and writers on ancient philosophy and its place in everyday life. He is a sought-after speaker, strategist, and the author of many bestselling books including The Obstacle Is the Way; Ego Is the Enemy; The Daily Stoic; and the #1 New York Times bestseller Stillness Is the Key. His books have been translated into over 30 languages and read by over two million people worldwide. He lives outside Austin, Texas, with his family.
