So, growth hacker is a marketer. Fine. But not all marketers are growth hackers. My understanding is that, growth hacking is a specialty in marketing which focus on consumer web marketing. It is also a very technical and hands on position. As a growth hacker, you not only need to have a marketing plan, but also need to implement or help implement the marketing plan. There is nothing wrong for giving a name to a sub-category of marketing profession.
“Growth Hacking” is BS
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Re: “Growth Hacking” is BS
#42"So, why is the title “Growth Hacker” a bunch of BS? Because it’s just a way for marketing averse startups to hire marketers without having to publicly say they’re hiring marketers." This is false, as you disprove a few paragraphs later: "The goal of a marketer is to grow a customer base. That’s what these growth hackers are doing, they’re just doing it in a more technically advanced way via data confirmation and spl…
As a programmer, I'm already too embarrassed at this point to call myself a hacker. If our marketing team starts calling themselves growth hackers, I think the once honorable label will have been irrevocably soiled. If you haven't worked at a big company, this may seem puzzling, but just imagine the job ads, the Business Week covers.
Re: “Growth Hacking” is BS
#43A bit off topic: how do I go about finding a freelance marketer? People I find on odesk seem to be of the spammy kind. Any advices?
You might want to try some of the business schools that are future looking and might have strong eng / entrepreneurship programs and often cross pollinate these students in their admissions or classrooms. Students are often willing to help out to gain their own experience, especially those desiring career changes from eng to business. for example: MIT, Stanford, etc.
Re: “Growth Hacking” is BS
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what? So is Patrick McKenzie, people seem to be cool with him.
Patrick proudly promotes himself as an SEO/marketing consultant, not a "growth hacker".
I have apparently spent less time thinking of what I call my consulting practice than other people do, but I usually phrase it as "I make money for software companies" rather than any of the above three, for reasons similar to why I don't say "intermediate Rails coder."
I've been called a growth hacker before. Whatever. Couldn't care less either way. Lawyers get paid for caring about the precise boundaries between similar-sounding words. I'm certainly not a lawyer.
Re: “Growth Hacking” is BS
#45There is too much talk about titles and too little talk about how to get a product development process in place that allows for great product design that also achieves key metrics. This post doesn't go very far in furthering the discussion. The answers come not from anti-[job title] posts, but something more positive, like describing how things get done at Facebook, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Zynga, and other orgs that are g…
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Re: “Growth Hacking” is BS
#46I partly agree to it. The web is full of buzz words meaning nothing. Growth Hacker, however refers to a combo of marketer +coder. I get totally pissed off at terms like python rockstars, javascript pirates rails ninjas. Seriously WhyTF do we need such pompous terms? An experienced programmer goes well.
Re: “Growth Hacking” is BS
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely. The term has a definite meaning. It refers to a software engineer with enough market awareness, copywriting savvy, and statistical ability to run a campaign full stack. There aren't that many people with this skillset, but they are valuable. By contrast, the typical person listing "marketing" on LinkedIn is just not that technical. A good growth hacker can conceptualize and code the AirBnB/Craiglist integ…
Sounds like you are referring to a generalist.
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Re: “Growth Hacking” is BS
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely. The term has a definite meaning. It refers to a software engineer with enough market awareness, copywriting savvy, and statistical ability to run a campaign full stack. There aren't that many people with this skillset, but they are valuable. By contrast, the typical person listing "marketing" on LinkedIn is just not that technical. A good growth hacker can conceptualize and code the AirBnB/Craiglist integ…
Sounds like you are referring to a generalist.
Or even an entrepreneur.
I am sure most people with an interest in programming that have founded a company recently have spent time doing tasks that fall under the growth hacker skill set.
In fact, you could say that if you don't carry out these marketing measures then you are an out of date marketer
Re: “Growth Hacking” is BS
#49So using the term "growth hacking" rather than "marketing" is marketing?
Re: “Growth Hacking” is BS
#50"So, why is the title “Growth Hacker” a bunch of BS? Because it’s just a way for marketing averse startups to hire marketers without having to publicly say they’re hiring marketers." This is false, as you disprove a few paragraphs later: "The goal of a marketer is to grow a customer base. That’s what these growth hackers are doing, they’re just doing it in a more technically advanced way via data confirmation and spl…
To me, "growth hacking" evokes more than just marketing.
Let's say my startup hustles like crazy and carves out a deal with a major coffee chain (like Square did with Starbucks IIRC).
Suddenly we have access to a whole lot more users. We grew the user base drastically, yet it wasn't exactly a result of marketing but rather one of strategic dealmaking.
To me, that is the quintessence of growth hacking.