The Growth Hacker's Dilemma: Process vs. Tactics | Hacker News Reader

The Growth Hacker's Dilemma: Process vs. Tactics

onstartups.com

32 pointsbronsontaylor11 comments

The attempt to turn Growth Hacking into a discipline will fail exactly because it attempts to put a formal framework and language around something that is ultimately un-formal and all encompassing.

Its going to experience the same slow death as the UX discipline has. It's too wide a definition for its own good and those who know how to do it, know it because they know something else (design, programming etc)

Its like saying there are is a dilemma for hackers with regards to process vs. tactics.

I hate the term "Growth Hacker", but there is certainly a ton of demand for full stack marketers. The role may seem vague because it is definitely cross-functional but almost always has the following requirements:

- Product Competency (ability to product manage and make sensible product decisions)

- Marketing Competency (knowledge of all possible marketing channels and enough understanding to prioritize marketing efforts across them)

- Engineering Competency (ability to work directly with engineers and ability to do basic statistical analysis)

This basically describes a Product Manager who also has an in-depth understanding of marketing, which is not really that vague at all.

Very well explained Jamie.

I think the growth hacking/engineering role/persona is especially now building up as a core skillset as product decisions need to be made way faster and way often than ever before (thanks to realtime usage data and very short release cycles).

This basically puts way more pressure on making the right decisions for the product & its marketing (in a holistic cross-functional way). A thing that traditionally was handled 'well enough' with several people/departments that communicate.

In a nutshell it is a product management position but with emphasis on marketing and growth. Depending on the lifecycle of your company this is the job of the founders/CEO or the product manager or a dedicated CMO. All in all the skillset in itself is very very valuable and there is not enough good material on product management and cross-functional agile marketing.

I am contributing content in this area and hope more and more people will follow. There is a ton out there that solely focuses on marketing (low barrier to entry) but not much quality content on the intersection of marketing & engineering & ux.

If you are interested in growth hacking feel free to check out my upcoming book:

https://www.blossom.io/growth-engineering

Also very happy to help anyone who'd like to grab a coffee/tea with me in San Francisco or Bay Area or via email, twitter, hangout. Feel free to get in touch.

>Put another way, some startups have a process, other startups just implement the tactics (best practices) that are the results of someone else’s process.

Yes, but you still need to test other people's best practices. What works for some, might not work for you. I remember when Etsy introduced infinite scroll because everyone were doing it; they soon found out that it affected their conversions negatively and returned to old style.

There's no dilemma, you can and should do both! It's just a link-baity title (that I fell for)

The smartest don't share their tactics, why would you give away competitive advantage?

The smartest know that dialog, discussion, and cooperation, can bring about a sum of possibilities that will easily dwarf any small-minded collection of tactics. By taking part, your part is enlarged.

in the scientific community results are top secret until published. Scientists are smart people working for the greater good, but they are fiercely competitive and don't risk giving their immediate peers any advantage.

Sounds good on paper, possibly disastrous in practice.

The smartest share what they know all the time -- that's part of what makes them smart.

marketing is different, marketing channels only remain good for a relatively short time period and sharing the knowledge around only hastens its demise. (oops, with marketing I mean growth hacking obviously)

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