Defining A Growth Hacker: Building Growth Into Your Team

In this series titled ?Defining a growth hacker,? I will be exploring the meaning and practical application of growth hacking through a number of interviews with prominent growth hackers. This is the fourth post of the series. The previous posts are as follows: common characteristics here, growth hacking?s impact on marketing here, and impact on product here. Paul Graham reminded the startup community that it is in the business of growth. ?A startup is a company designed to grow fast,? Graham writes. Though growing a business is a universal desire, implementing growth is unique to the product, the market, and the company. Nabeel Hyatt, venture partner at Spark Capital, said that there is no single way to grow a company. Execution is a startup?s fingerprint: distinctive and hard to replicate. A growth hacker?s role is not static but constantly adapting to the organization?s needs. Building growth into a team starts with adopting a culture of growth, recruiting the right team, and implementing with the right corporate mindset. Adopting a culture of growth Valuing ?growth? is more than just filling a position. It operates like a fundamental value or a ?creed? that the rest of the organization uses to prioritize decisions. ?Growth is not just the concept of ?how do I market this??. Rather, it is a company belief and value,? said Hiten Shah, co-founder of KISSmetrics. From day one, company culture is being fastened and formed. Inserting growth creed at a later point in time requires more energy and time to implement, which slows down learning. ?At the founder level, a growth hacker designs product around inherent distribution and sets a data-driven culture,? said Matt Humphrey, co-founder of Homerun. ?This is probably the most important phase of a company.? Adopting a growth creed at any point in time requires trust in the process and continuous internal advocacy. When it comes to growth, results require patience. The founder is the best person to integrate the creed into the organization, allocate resources and establish the organization?s vision on growth. ?Growth has to be part of the culture from day one,? said Jim Young, co-founder of HotorNot and Perceptual Networks. ?It is much harder to staple on a growth team when there is an entrenched development process that is not as metrics oriented or fast-paced. A growth hacker works best as a founder, since they will be able to establish the culture for

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