aatif awan, head of growth linkedin - growth hacking is dead. long live growth
TRANSCRIPT
Aatif Awan Growth @ LinkedIn
Growth Hacking is Dead. Long live Growth.
Early 2011
Growth at LinkedIn
• 10 people on Growth team
• 100 Million LinkedIn members
• Acquisition
Today
110 people
380 Million
Acquisition, Onboarding, Connections, Retention & Resurrection, Comms
Popular Growth Tactics
+
“Get your free email at Hotmail” at the bottom of each email.
12 Million users in 18 months.
Jumpstarted growth by cross-posting to Craigslist without an available API.
Why not use these tactics to grow your product?
Using these examples to drive growth for a startup is like using Penicillin’s accidental discovery to develop the next antibiotic.
Growth Hacking A hyped-up collection of anecdotes, tactics and theories.
Pixie Dust Theory You can sprinkle growth tactics on your product and make it grow.
Wizard of Oz Theory You can hire a growth hacker who will make your product grow.
Jack and the Beanstalk Theory Just do something. You never know what might magically grow your product.
Growth A scientific approach to growing a product’s usage.
Reasoning from First Principles
“I think it’s important to reason from first principles rather than by analogy. [With analogy] we are doing a thing because it’s like something else that was done by other people. [With first principles] you boil things down to the most fundamental truths and then reason up from there.” — Elon Musk
Startup success = Product + Growth + Revenue
Product
Make something people want
Growth
Get lots of people to use the product
Revenue
Get someone to pay for the product or for access to its
users
Good Product Comes First, Growth Second
• Investing in growth before you have a good product is a waste of resources.
• It might seem to work
initially, but reality catches up eventually.
DAUs for Viddy
Good Product Leads to Good Retention
• Retention curve for good products flattens out after a few months.
• If your retention isn’t good, nothing else matters.
Good retention
Bad retention
You can Improve Retention by…
• Getting feedback from existing users to understand what’s working and what’s not.
• Finding a segment of users for whom your product has good retention.
• Getting users to experience core value (A-ha moment) sooner.
Once you have good retention, it’s time to grow.
Picking Your Top Metric
• Define one primary metric that
• is aligned with the success of your business
• measures value for users
• is summable
User Behavior
Identifying Growth Channels
• Do existing users share your product via word of mouth?
• Are people using search to find a solution?
• Do users have a high LTV?
Channels to explore
Virality, referrals
SEO, SEM
Paid acquisition
• Does having more users improve the experience? Virality
• Are your target users already on another platform? Partnership, Integration
Prioritize channels
and levers
Brainstorm hypotheses and ideas
Assess impact on primary metric
Prioritize based on impact,
likelihood and effort
Build, A/B test and measure
Growth Requires Continuous Prioritization and Feedback
Hiring for Growth
• Analytical
• Get shit done
• Curious – Ask why?
• Find new ways to do things – Ask why not?
• Prior growth experience is optional
LinkedIn Growth Team
SEO Network Growth
þ Onboarding Comms
SEO, Conversion optimization, Public profile
PYMK, Virality, Connections
Onboarding, Activation, Intent discovery
Engagement through Email/Push, Resurrection
Culture
• Set ambitious goals • Move fast
• Data trumps opinions • Continuously learn • Celebrate wins
Thank you!
www.linkedin.com/in/aatifawan
aatif_awan