7 Growth Hacking Techniques Startups Can Learn From Successful Entrepreneurs

Some of the great entrepreneurial minds of our times surely go by what Isaac Newton once said: “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” This means that they did their homework, unlike the vast majority of new generation startups that seem to forget to do market research before going out with their projects.

As pointed out in one of our previous posts, the sad truth is that most of startup companies fail because their business strategy is not based upon thorough research. Therefore, even the most revolutionary idea can benefit from meeting the audience, analyzing the competition and learning about the state of  supply and demand in a specific industry. Additionally, they should always consider the techniques used by growth hackers behind Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others in order to see their companies grow.

1.     Give yourself a deadline.

Nick Woodman wanted to be able to record himself while surfing so he founded GoPro. Of course, this was only the initial idea and the process of actually founding a company was much less simple.

Woodman first had a dotcom company which lasted for about 6 years. After that experience, he started GoPro with a lot of enthusiasm. He gave himself a deadline of four years to make it successful. There was no time for surfing or anything that would have a negative impact on the company’s growth. A combination of dedication, experience and a great product made GoPro a huge success.

2.     Find a gap in the market.

This piece of advice comes from SoundCloud creators Eric Wahlforss and Alexander Ljung, who were engineering students and music producers when they decided to launch their startup. They noticed a lack of good quality tools that would transfer an audio file to any number of recipients so they decided to create the platform.

By enabling such a feature on Soundcloud, and making it widely accessible, they attracted millions of users from all over the globe. An interesting thing about their idea is their monetization model, which from the very start defined the benefits of paid profiles that would offer exclusive features for premium users. After a while, this pair of visionaries got an opportunity to grow even more and they grabbed it. They kept innovating the infrastructure, eventually making the SoundCloud community strong enough to get the epithet “the YouTube of audio”.

3.     Create fun tech.

Instagram is probably the best example of applying the don’t-just-reinvent-the-wheel technique in practice. The company took a thing that already existed and added a fun feature. The idea behind Instagram was to enable people to express their creativity on the go and do so on a platform that is extremely user friendly and intuitive.  Mobility, of course, was one of the greatest innovations at the time.

Because of its mobility and the huge community, Facebook and Twitter became interested in partnering with Instagram. From then on, it was a chess game. Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom tactically declined Twitter’s several million dollar offer, only to partner with Facebook for a billion. Good move from Krieger and Systrom for increasing their company’s valuation.

4.     Make sure your product is actually useful.

The usability advice comes from – who else – Twitter co-founder and Square CEO Jack Dorsey. Both companies’ success stories are intriguing, but here I will only focus on how Square was conceived.

Square is a way to seamlessly purchase anything in a store. It enables small business owners to accept credit card payments. You no longer have to stand in a long line or use cash – quite a good base for a product that people will love.

Of course, Dorsey already had the resources and the contacts to start his new company but he did not rely solely on that. He had a perfect product and a marketing strategy. He even made a list of “140 Reasons Why Square Will Fail” and sent it to his sponsors to prove that he is prepared for all possible future scenarios. Now, that’s what you call a startup pitch!

5.     Make a long term plan and make it a good one.

Another example of a successful company with continuous growth is Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg’s new technique will get him even more new users. Currently, Facebook has over 1 billion international users, but Zuckerberg is planning to increase that number to 5 billion. That’s almost the entire world’s population. He wants to connect everyone, understand the world and help building the knowledge economy. This is his long term plan for the next 27 years!

After going mobile and enabling users to use Facebook on the go, the company saw a huge increase in user engagement. Now, Facebook plans to reach users in underdeveloped countries by giving them a mobile app that isn’t widespread in the States. The app, Facebook For Every Phone, is the main reason for Facebook’s continual growth.

6.     Understand that every customer is important.

Julia Hartz is the co-founder of Eventbrite – a multibillion-dollar ticketing company. She teaches us that no customer is too small, and that by not treating every customer equally you are limiting your company’s growth potential.

She achieved a “democratization” of event planning and made it possible for anyone to operate a box office for events. Eventbrite makes money each time an organizer sells a ticket, so you can imagine why each and every customer is valuable. Hartz recognized this fact which resulted in major growth and success.

7.     Databases everywhere: the importance of a good database system.

When your business is growing as fast as Ari Talja’s Angry Birds, you surely need a high quality database system to store customer information, billing and subscriptions.

They anticipated a rapid growth and reacted quickly. They developed their own database system and managed to keep the users satisfied and as a result their service never deteriorated. When you handle all the data well on your end, you ensure a positive user feedback, which is always essential for maintaining a company’s growth.

Conclusions

There are no rules for successful marketing campaigns or product launches. There are tools and lessons that should motivate you to keep trying. Sometimes, all it takes is a good research to give you an idea of a possible opportunity; or simply inspiration from those who have already done it successfully.