How To Build A Kick-Ass Growth Team | Hacker News Reader

How To Build A Kick-Ass Growth Team

growthsensei.com

33 pointswillix40 comments

LOTS OF CAPS!!!! I HIRED 4 PEOPLE WHO WERE TOP OF THEIR CLASS!

Seriously? This seems like him trying to retroactively explain why he has a good team. Even if his company and his team do their jobs excellently, that doesn't mean he can explain why, or even necessarily create a new team with the same level of success. Frankly, there are a lot of random factors in success.

More specifically, as other people have pointed out, the focus on academic credentials is ridiculous. I suppose if you create an insular team where everyone can pat each other on the back for having a 4.0 GPA, that's fine. But there are tons of good technical people without any credentials, or who didn't give a toss about school. Not only are you not willing to hire them, you've created a culture where even if you do find someone amazing without credentials, that person will be a second class citizen.

The point was to hire the very best you can, which I think is something everyone can agree with.

That's a useless platitude. The point of the article is to define what exactly "best" is. Everyone always wants to make the best choice, but they hardly know what that is. In this case, the author says "best" is top of class, a sentiment with which I vehemently disagree

I don't get it - Why do people abuse the term 'hacker' so much? If it's so much hip being one, then, why not try to be a real hacker instead?? Why do people simply call themselves a 'growth hacker' when all they do is simply send a bunch of marketing emails to Techcrunches and Mashables and some PR agencies??

Similarly, it was the term entrepreneur before, for example, I have a huge list of dudes on my Facebook with titles like CEO, CTO for a <insert a dotcom domain with a wordpress blog with a free theme installed here>. Being an entrepreneur/hacker is one thing and abusing the terms is totally another!

I think you're somewhat missing the point of the post.

I think the term hacker is very appropriate in this case. Growth hacking requires constant experimentation and a deep technical skill set (both of which are key to a "hacker"). Finally, from what I gather the term today is deliberately used to distinguish the discipline from more traditional online marketing.

A few who have used the term have mentioned it refers to scrappiness/hacking together, definition of the word hack is:

* to cut, notch, slice, chop, or sever (something) with or as with heavy, irregular blows

I think it's quite fitting

From Merriam-Webster, a well-known English dictionary[1]

A hacker is:

"a person who is inexperienced or unskilled at a particular activity <a tennis hacker>"

But this can't be the definition that these people are citing - Because, on the contrary, they claim to be 'experts'.

So, the next (apt) definition is, w.r.t computers:

"an expert at programming and solving problems with a computer"

But they don't program either. And citing just 'solving problems with a computer' is a very vague definition for a hacker. By that definition, even a 'data entry guy' would become a hacker.

so you see, the term hacker has nothing to do with marketing. It would be more apt if people call themselves 'marketing experts', rather than just 'growth hackers'. Sometimes, it could be mis-leading. For instance, observe:

    TOM: Hey, what did you do at your previous company?
    HARRY: I used to hack stuff.
    TOM: [Imagines: Wow, this guy must be a genius! wonder if he could find out Lena's Facebook password!]

See where this is going?

[1]http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hacker

"an expert at programming and solving problems with a computer"

These guys are experts at solving problems with a computer. Don't know whether or not they'd be classed as expert programmers

Neya - my growth team does more than just sending marketing emails. We are very data-driven and product strategy is also part of our team responsibility. We use machine-learning based classifier for many part of our company funnels

I don't know if it's just me or if I've had a long day, but I can't really understand posts of this kind anymore when they are effectively just buzz words/phrases strung loosely together.

That's the point, he is actively making it difficult for you to understand him. By dropping in words with complex backgrounds, he hopes you (you generally, not you in particular) do not have enough knowledge in those domains to understand how those terms do/do not fit together. This leaves you in a position of having to accept his point as there might be truth in what he is saying - you aren't knowledgeable enough to tell the difference between the correct and incorrect usage of the terms.

Generally, someone who understands the concepts will not use terms strung together like that unless forced. "machine-learning based classifier" with "company funnels" seems a bit suspect in this case, and probably needs a blog post to explain fully, not a simple one line rebuttal as above.

So yeah, it's not just you.

Very well explained, Ryan. Agreed!

I stopped reading at "hypergrowth"

This certainly does feel like an elaborate parody.

Willix, I haven't downvoted you and I don't know why people have downvoted you either (though I disagree with you).

I know Freelancer.com and the rate at which it has scaled. I know the tremendous growth rate you guys have achieved (kudos!). By no means am I questioning your ability nor your skills. I am just genuinely curious as to why people are so interested in using the term 'Growth Hacker' so much.

And I disagree that, even being data-driven alone is not the apt definition of a real hacker.

I don't understand the hostility in this thread.

Willix - For those of us that aren't aware of freelancer, can you provide some numbers on the kind of growth this team has been able to achieve? Also, it will help to know some top performing growth tactics for you guys...examples as specific as the airbnb one would be great!

You make some decent points, but your "Data Analytics" questions are pretty basic. Stats 101 level stuff. I mean, sure, you might want to open with one or two of these questions, just to test someone for bullshit. But if someone's applying to be a data scientist and can't tell you what a 95% CI means, or what Type 1 and Type 2 errors are, or describe the concept of expected value, their resumes probably shouldn't have passed your filter in the first place.

Second, I take issue with the "marketers are mathematical Neanderthals" line. This is a broad stereotype that does nobody any favors. As much as everyone likes to take swings at MBA types every so often, graduate-level marketers need to be highly proficient in statistics to be competent at their work. Few of them can code, I'm sure, so in as much as that's the case, they're probably not of tremendous value to an early-stage growth team. But a classical marketing training most certainly includes strategy, stats, data analytics, etc. It's not just advertising.

Now, if you're talking about "marketers" in the sense of Communications majors who've never so much as passed Calc B, I'd see your point. But those sorts of people fall into an entirely different category.

So you want 23 year olds who graduated valedictorians of their universities, have PhDs, are accomplished quantum physicists, capable of answering complex computer science interview questions, familiar with statistics, and can explain the causes of the subprime mortgage crisis?

Why set your bar so low?

That confused me as well (even though I do have a university medal) - then I realised that PHD = Passionate - Hungry - Driven, not Doctor of Philosophy :-)

I am sorry to put it this way in this forum, but the "bullshit" and "buzzwords" warning lights on my panel have just lit up.

"So I have a team of 12 Growth Hackers / Data Scientists / Product Managers-Growth / Whatever the f* you call it - I call them growth ninjas"

Is this satire?

I think if you called the team marketing you would struggle to hire people with the right skill sets into it.

The text is from a marketeer, and it shows. I hit buzzword bingo in a couple of paragraphs. They're not hackers, they're not ninjas. They are marketeers of the big data generation. Nothing new here, move along.

On a side note: average age of 23??? What's with this concept that people in their 40s, 50s or 60s can't be as/more driven than youngsters?

> average age of 23??? What's with this concept that people in their 40s, 50s or 60s can't be as/more driven than youngsters?

Most of the time I have seen the "we only hire young, hungry people" statement, it translated to: we hire (on paper) qualified people who are still cheap and don't have enough experience to say no to the silliest requests we have. After hiring we just give them enoug work to have their first burn out with 30 and then we hire new people.

Most of the time someone in his 40s to 60s has more experience which means better connections to potential alternative employers and costs more money.

Please see this as a general statement, I don't know if this is the case with this company.

I can appreciate the content of this article. I believe the author is correct about a number of things. I wonder though, if the author understands just how much his bizarre use of capitalization undermines his point.

If you are trying to apply accents to specific words, you'd be much better off with an underline or the even subtler italization. The random caps and questionable word choice throw me off. Why, for example, does the author refer to his engineers as ninjas and what does that have to do with their qualifications? I thought we were done hiring rock stars and samurai and that we could return to the days where professionalism was important.

In short, I appreciate the message, but despise the delivery. If you can afford to hire PHDs, ninjas and other such elite folks, you can afford to hire someone to edit your writing, and you should.

It is interesting the focus on academic achievements.

Yet I think, that yes, it means they might be hardworking people, but does not guarantee much else.

Sometimes you find great people that are not even graduated, and I am not talking about "Bill Gates fake dropout", but people that never set a foot in college in first place.

Some people started their trade very early, sometimes in childhood, and when they reach 20, they are already masters of it.

Of course, these are rare, so if you want to risk less, hiring only the best of their classes is fine.

I don't agree with the logic behind it in this context.

a) Working hard in a commercial environment is something different from studying hard. Many successful academics are motivated by acquiring knowledge, but find it very hard to motivate themselves to produce stuff, especially marketable end-products.

b) Laziness is not a major obstacle for a good hacker. Since there is a limited amount of time per day one can truly focus, laziness can be a great aid in picking your battles and avoid wasting energy.

Interesting.

Yes, hard to argue with that.

What I would say is that a top class might at least know how it is to work hard...

Maybe.

The brave new world where there are no jobs for PhDs so they have to work for the marketing spam department.

After reading this article, it has become clear to me that I would never want to work for this guy.

You lost me at buzzword strategy growth buzzword overhypedbuzzword hacker.

You had me at Big Mac. Maybe.

It seems like such arbitrary conditions you set in order ...wait a minute, I just noticed the website is "growthsensei.com", that's like Guru level 88?

Aaand that's all my time for the day.

Question for willix: How is growth hacking for freelancer.com different to good marketing for freelancer.com?

Growth is marketing- it's just done with a different set of people than you would do a decade or more ago. Instead of people with MBAs or marketing backgrounds you do it with computer scientists and statisticians, and you base your actions on science; lots of testing and data.

That is the point I need clarification on.

For a site like freelancer.com (large number of users, entirely online, lifetime value very important) testing and data work very well.

So since marketing is growth, isn't this the approach that would be used by a good marketing department?

Obviously a bad marketing department would do things differently, but a good one would find the activities that gave the steepest growth curve

Sharing what you look for in a growth hacker and what questions to ask is very useful as many people claim they are great at "growth hacking".

My biggest insight from this is that growth hackers need to be mathematical and not marketing gurus.

Great article! Keep em coming

Yes, because acquiring one person with a PhD for your team is easy. Difficulty in adding 3 more is probably like finding the resistance of resistors in parallel...

We have some growth hackers at our company lol. They're basically the slacker engineers that work on salesforce integrations all day long to help sales ppl.

interestingly all the types of people you name- data scientists, quantum physicist, blah blah - are all the same types of people who crunched numbers for the big banks only a few years back until making moves into tech.

im totally for data crunching and analytics but there's a human side of the business that gets overlooked when a team is so heavily decked like this.

I'm really hoping this whole article is satire.

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