aginn

The article does a decent job of discussing growth hacking just after Sean Ellis wrote about it in 2010. You can find most substantial content on tactics and best practices else where.

I am glad the importance of growth is spreading to the mainstream but people need more meat these days.

this comment is sensationalism

most growth hackers or growth pros are product managers or product editors,so the post starts with the wrong premise.

Also, your accusations against growth hackers are titled based rather than what they do or learning about what growth hackers do. If growth hackers choose to identify themselves with each other in a new way, I don't think there is an issue. Let them be. Remember, front-end engineering wasn't considered much of a position 5 years ago. Same with UX, UI, data scientist, etc. How about SEO specialist or direct-marketers.... Can they self-idenitfy a new sub-division of marketing?

Adam Smith was right, people specialize as an industry expands to offer greater value in a niche. Growth has become essential to startups. Growth teams are becoming standard at scaling startups. Thus, growth hackers appeared.

It is fine to express a distaste for a growth hacker by what he or she does, seems silly to dislike them for their title. That is like saying "I hate chocolate because of they call it "chocolate""

I must say degrading the work Sean Ellis and Andrew Chen have done by comparing them to meaningless consultants from the dot-com era is disgusting. Andrew Chen is one of the most brilliant viral engineers on this planet. Sean Ellis has rocketed several companies to success and just acquired a KISS company. I don't respect ad hominem attacks, neither should you.

The ironic thing about Robb is that he only lives Paleo 80% of the time. His disciples are quite radical on living 100% Paleo.

Great work!

As an avid crossfitter and Paleo adherent, Paleo does wonderings for losing weight. I have seen people shed 20 pounds over a summer. You don't lose weight by going to the gym, it is through your diet. "Abs are made in the kitchen, not in the gym".

Actually they are not just "marketing people". They top growth hackers are often full-stack developers (Jesse Farmer, Matt Humphrey, Jim Young, Mike Greenfield, Dan Martell, Danielle Morrill, Ivan Kirgin etc).

This is not inbound marketing but building product that, at its core, is focused on growth. LinkedIn, Zynga, Quora, Twitter, and Facebook all have growth teams.

Do you know Dropbox's brilliant referral strategy? That was the brainchild of Sean Ellis (growth hacker), Ivan Kirigin (growth hacker), and Dropbox leadership.

Here is what I think after interviewing 20+ GHs and doing it myself for the past two years.

growth hacker (noun) - one who’s passion and focus is growth through use of a testable, empirical, and scalable methodology.

Basically, a growth hacker is the blend of a product, marketing, and data. They sort of operate as R&D within a startup.

Resources: http://www.quora.com/Growth-Hacking/What-is-growth-hacking/a... http://startup-marketing.com/where-are-all-the-growth-hacker... http://www.vlaskovits.com/2012/07/youre-a-growth-rookie-not-... http://www.aginnt.com/growth-hacker#.UDvRGmPlWPI

If you dont want to eat there, dont eat there. the government does not need to be involved and dictate where Chickfila should operate (ex. Boston). Let consumers decide what they care about. If they dont care about the CEO's beliefs, let them eat more chicken. If they do, let them go to McD's.

I dont agree with Zuck's beliefs on individualism, privacy, and most policy issues, yet I use Facebook. The product is good.

Solid improvements.

I suggest placing a cookie in the browser to remember what link I created and I "log" back in to my "account" with links I shared.

I think the better question is "who has gone from a safe, corporate job to a risky startup in an incubator?"

Hopefully, you are working full-time if you go to an incubator :)

Assuming this question is about work-style not risk-reward, I have the following insights: - The biggest change is that you are in charge of your day, not your manager. It is very easy to get distract by the glamour of meetups, TechCrunch, and posting on HackerNews (love that Karma). There is no overlord telling you where to go or what to do. It is you and your company (or idea). Even if you have a CEO and you are the first hire, most likely the founders are going to be busy. They expect you to be an awesome self-starter. - Work life balance no longer applies. In a startup, your identity is wrapped deep into your company. Your work is your life. Startups require a significant amount of your time, but a TON of emotional investment. Prepare your loved ones for the bumpy road ahead. - Most things suck, but a few things are good. Startups prioritize. There are going to be things about your product that suck and things about your product that are great. This metaphor also applies to the entire business. A lot of what you will be doing on a day-to-day basis will end up adding little value to your company. You are trying to figure out your bread and butter but you will lose a lot of loaves and cream along the way.

The response to a post like this is balance; however, the main problem is people do not know what is "balance". The easiest thing to do is to create time boundaries

Corporate culture (including some startups I know) value face time over outcomes (input vs. output valuation). If something goes wrong, managers tend to point to face time rather than the host of other factors, so people work even when there is no need. Face time = working hard. It is a vicious cycle and creates a huge inefficiency.

The solution is to create firm... let me repeat FIRM boundaries on things you value, whether family time or time at the gym. While this creates a constraint and seems bold, it improves efficiency because most of the time we spend in the office does not create value. It is pointless meetings, calls that go to long, and mindless Facebook scrolling. If your employees or your manager knows that you will leave at X time, it is remarkable to see how efficient your colleagues become.

Here is GOOD's post on sleep for entrepreneurs http://www.good.is/post/don-t-fall-asleep-at-the-wheel-succe...

This is a poor and misunderstood version of what Obamacare will actually do. Having worked in healthcare tech for two years and healthcare investment banking, the analysis this person put forward is rudimentary understanding of how our healthcare system works.

Here are a few highlights - 50% of all regulations are behind schedule, bundled payments, payment sunshine, are just a few highlights

- "The decision over whether or not your claim is approved is still in the hands of your insurer. However, now there's an appeals process so if your claim gets turned down, you can challenge that. And the government watches that appeals process to make sure it's not being unfair to customers." => there already is an appeal process. The real nugget is "unfair". What the crap is unfair? How do you regulate unfair? Notice, there is no mention of AMA's power of setting CPT codes and reimbursement schedules.

- "The PPACA actually very specifically says you can keep the insurance you have if you want." => First, everyone's insurance has already changed with the implementation of MLR rules. Second, how can the government fulfill this promise. It cannot. Premiums increase between 10% to 20% a year. Think people. It is an empty promise to make you feel good inside.

- "The PPACA very specifically says that the Secretary of Health and Human Services (who is in charge of much of the bill), is absolutely not to promote any regulation that hinders a patient's ability to get health care, to speak with their doctor, or have access to a full range of treatment options." => no way to fulfill this promise. If you are giving access to 20 million people, there are still only 600,000 practicing physicians. Supply is basically fixed (with a 20 yr cycle). Unless you failed economics, there is no possible way the government can actually deliver on this.

- "Additionally, the bill cuts some stuff from Medicare that's not really working, and generally tries to make everything work more efficiently" - HAHA! $500 billion in imaginary savings. Not to mention the author forgets that the DocFix is not included in the bill. How do they reach $500 billion? Cutting doctors payments by 32%.

- "Also, the increased focus on preventative care (making sure people don't get sick in the first place), should help to save money the government already spends on emergency care for these same people. Basically, by catching illnesses early, we're not spending as much on emergency room visits." Preventive care INCREASES utilization. ER visits are "falsely" expensive because the "costs" are typically based upon gross charges. ER visits are super expensive but it is a scape goat for preventive medicine or the individual mandate. The free-rider problem does not exist.

- "They had been reading it over and over for a half a year. This thing was being tossed around in debates for ages." - Not true. I know the people on the hill who wrote the bill. It was put together over a month.

As a Chinese american, this shows the house of cards that is Chinese state capitalism. China builds these types of communities as a "bribe" to exploit natural resources in the respective country.

There are plenty examples of ghost towns in China https://www.google.com/search?q=chinese+ghost+towns&hl=e...

I've visited some of these places on my trips back to China. The local governments in China are typically the ones who approve and push through these nonsensical plans.

Skynet is here

Sunglass team is solid with some of the smartest engineers I have ever met. Great job Nitin!

How quickly giants fall. I see an M&A in their future.

This post points out the declining VC industry as we understand it today, but they are reinventing themselves (markets are not static). the proliferation of seed funds and the consolidation of LPs into a few outstanding firms is an example of the industry changing how it invests.

The virus is pretty remarkable and impressive. It was safe to assume that we and Israel worked together, but I was leaning more to Israel operating alone. Israel has been quite rouge for the past two years.

I think every entrepreneur has had this idea. They did not pursue for the same reason why you did. Besides, your never ends up the way you initially planned.

Anyone else think it is ironic that he quotes Marx in a capitalist "pig" column on a website that thrives in a darwinian startup culture?

It does depend on what you need, but in general, not sure many people recommend to sleep less. I thought the world suffers from overload. The number of hours we sleep has fallen.

I think the best sleeping habits reflect those of Churchill and humans before the 19th century: sleep 6 hours and then sleep 2 to 4 in the middle of the day.

More reason why to sleep more

http://www.aginnt.com/post/23693419818/how-to-be-a-great-ent...

I made the instagram+twitter+facebook+groupon+referly+craiglist that allows you to post to your social networks.

The real question: is there a market for this "in-between" market as the founder describes?

Name dropping gets tiring and does not help build product. Agree with the post.

Agreed. That is not how underwriting works. Also, the first FB shorts have not come due yet.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/op?s=FB+Options Current FB options show that most investors think the stock will fall.

Awesome! Let me know if I can help in anyway.

I used to be called a ninja at my old startup when i moved out to the valley. Quickly changed after going to a few meetups

I agree with wallawe. This sector really needs some new resources. The hotspots for debate online are on facebook notes and quora. Both platforms are not conducive for debating.

My main feedback is that all of the information looks equally relevant on the page. I would suggest minimization of suggestions of other debates and focus the UI on debating the current issue you are looking at. It seems that you want people to debate rather than just vote. As of right now, I get lost in the three column layout.

Another shift to consider is having the evidence before the voting. If your goal is to educate and to encourage discuss over voting, the information on positions should be more readily available.

No doubt this vertical is hard to design for, ha ha

I just graduated from College and have been connected to the matrix (aka corporate america) for the past year. I can say that working and having a stable job will definitely tell you if you want to do your own thing. I discovered quickly that I am way to motivated to stay in a 8 to 5 job and that I want to do my own thing or join a supportive corporation.

I would recommend doing some corporate gig if you are unsure about starting your own company, but realize that it is very hard to cut the pay check. It is difficult to leave a stable well paying job.

I am pretty firmly in the camp of entrepreneurship and it is still difficult for me to remove myself from the matrix.

I work in healthcare. What types of problems are you running into?