kienbui1995/growth-hacking

Growth Hacking

When to Use

When trying to accelerate user acquisition, activation, or retention through product-led, data-driven experiments.

Core Jobs

1. Diagnose with the Pirate Funnel (AARRR)

• Acquisition: how are users finding you? (by channel)
• Activation: % reaching "aha moment" (first value experienced)?
• Retention: % returning after day 1, 7, 30?
• Revenue: conversion rate, ARPU, expansion rate?
• Referral: % of new users from existing users?

Find the biggest leak in the funnel — that's where to focus.

2. Design Viral Loops

Built-in virality:

• Collaboration: invite teammates to use product together
• Social sharing: results naturally shareable ("I just got X on [product]")
• Incentive referral: "Give $10, get $10" (Dropbox, Uber model)
• Content virality: user-generated content that markets product by existing

Viral coefficient K > 1 means exponential growth.

3. Improve Activation

Find the "aha moment" (first time user experiences core value):

• Map the onboarding flow step by step
• Find where >20% of users drop off
• Reduce steps to aha moment (remove friction)
• Guide users there faster (tooltips, email sequences, in-app nudges)

4. Retention Experiments

Tactics:

• Habit triggers: notifications at the right moment, not mass blasts
• Streak mechanics: daily engagement incentive
• Progress indicators: show users how far they've come
• Win-back campaigns: reactivate churned users with targeted message

Key Outputs

• Funnel analysis (AARRR metrics by channel)
• Viral loop design
• Activation experiment backlog
• Retention experiment results

Anti-Patterns

• Growth hacking before product-market fit (leaky bucket)
• Optimizing for acquisition while retention is poor
• Dark patterns (fake urgency, misleading copy) — destroys trust
• Running too many experiments simultaneously (can't attribute results)