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Comment by krisgee | Hacker News Reader

It works, 4 million dollars a year can attest to that. So even though I intensely dislike it I can't really argue against it.

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The same "I can't argue with it because it works" logic can be used for startups who "growth hack" their way to success even if it means harassing their users with interrupting modals and deceptive links. That doesn't make it unimpeachable.

Atleast with PewDiePie, you know what to expect.

> startups who "growth hack" their way to success

These exist? I mean, obviously the 'growth hacking' exists. Is there an example of a startup who managed to build a real business solely on the basis of these tactics? One that 'you can't argue with'? I wouldn't call Groupon a real business.

Reddit setup fake accounts/content.

RapGenius seems to have had a guy doing some underhanded promotion.

LinkedIn still does this stuff (or maybe it just started).

Safe to assume there are others.

None of these examples are unqualified successes. Neither Reddit nor RapGenius have business models yet that are making any money. LinkedIn made roughly $5,200 per employee last year.

Do you have anything to support those numbers? Honestly curious.

The LinkedIn number I got from their Wikipedia page. Just divide the net income of $26 million by their 5k employees.

Article from last year about Reddit's struggle for profitability:

http://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-is-trying-to-become-pr...

Article on RapGenius's own struggle:

http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/01/rap-genius-enterprise/

Well, I guess you can say LinkedIn is not a success (and with a PE of almost 1000 I like to be indignant-on-the-Internet, too). But if you ask most startup founders if they'd feel getting to LinkedIn position is a success, I think you'd get a resounding, unanimous, yes.

Ditto for reddit. Not sure how well the RapGenius people have made out but it seems they're doing well.

Remember, being a viable business is different than being successful. Twitter hasn't turned a profit, but the people that started it made off quite well. Splunk still loses cash left-and-right, yet is considered solid.

If I came up with a money-losing idea that got millions of users, never made a dime, and I sold it for even $10M, I'd be very happy with my "failure".

I don't watch that channel obviously but he's having fun and entertaining lots of people.

I can't find anything wrong with that to be honest. It's not about making money for me, it's about how you make money. He's not scamming anyone, he's just providing content and people choose to watch it. And it's probably still better than most of what's on TV.

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