Product is the Ultimate Growth Hack

I agree - the common methods for measuring net promoter (surveys) seem to put a burden on the customers.

I think twitter could potentially be pretty effective if you combine the number of mentions with a sentiment score. But then, it's pretty easy to increase twitter engagement using various tools.

I'm also looking for a good way to measure net promoter, but for another reason -- to quantify it for investors. We hear great customer feedback and get referrals all the time, but don't have a measurement for it. Even though it's true, I'm not sure investors will just believe that "our customers love us!".

Retention is not difficult to measure. You essentially track how often a user comes back over 1 day, 3, 7 days, 15, 30 days, etc, and benchmark against your competitors. The hard part is figuring out why your numbers are low and why the drop-off is happening, and coming up with creative solutions to solve the problems.

In addition to Net Promoter score, consider tracking K-Factor for virality, which is way more objective, and might give you some hints on what your NPS score is.

I use KISSmetrics to measure retention. Their cohort reports are great.

NPS is the de-facto standard for customer loyalty across almost every industry. That itself is a very useful thing. You can come up with a dozen other ways to try to measure customer loyalty on your own, but then you're on your own. No way to compare to others in the space, no easily told story to press, investors, potential partners or high-profile clients etc.

ahh. Yeah I feel you there. Just thought there was a somewhat interesting conversation on the GrowthHackers website as well. Thought it might add to the conversation.

Why would you say it's scummy? Growth hackers is a group of marketers that are passionate about sharing and discussing great content on ethical drivers of sustainable growth like this deck. Based on the discussion on GH, everyone in the community loved the deck and agreed with the premise that product is the ultimate growth hack. It wasn't even submitted from a community regular. Unlike your last three submissions to HN that were all self promotional for Pusher, where you are marketing manager.