Growth hacking can be a great option for founders: - **Check out our guide on when, how, and why to implement** growth hacking into your strategy. We've included best practices, resources, and a list to determine whether you're ready to growth hack!
Growth hacking can be a great option for founders:
-
Check out our guide on when, how, and why to implement growth hacking into your strategy. We've included best practices, resources, and a list to determine whether you're ready to growth hack!
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Looking to land great PR for your business? Below, industry experts break down top PR hacks for founders, including finding and contacting journalists directly.
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Founder Niklas Wenzel built and launched CheckoutBreeze, a Chrome extension for Shopify developers, in 14 hours. Here's how he used ChatGPT to build quickly, and why he's monetizing indirectly.
Want to share something with over 100,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing
📈 A Founder's Guide to Growth Hacking
by James Fleischmann
When it comes to growth hacking, indie hackers either love or hate it. There's usually no middle ground.
Those who are against growth hacking say that you should focus on your users, build a beautiful product, and market it consistently. They see growth hacks as being short-sighted; quick sparks instead of a sustained burn.
Those who are for growth hacking feel that there's no reason not to do it. Growth hacks have been proven to skyrocket growth. You see it in case study after case study. What's wrong with short-term growth anyway, especially in early-stage companies?
I’ve been researching growth hacking for years, and I think that both sides are right. Every founder just needs to strike a balance.
Growth hacking basics
Growth hacking essentially means finding creative ways to grow a company quickly and inexpensively. It often includes rigorous testing and experimentation, but in the indie hacker world, it's often less data-driven.
You cannot build a sustainable business with growth hacking alone. Your product needs to be at a certain level, and you need a solid strategy.
Also, you can grow a business without growth hacking. If you focus on building a beautiful product that is incredibly useful to your users, people will sign up, pay, stay, and tell their friends. But, it will probably take longer.
Growth hacking is about speed!
When to start growth hacking
Don't invest your time growth hacking until you’ve done the following:
- Validate your idea: I should mention that I have heard of some cases where growth hacks have helped founders to get eyes on the product during the validation stage.
- Build a useful product.
- Find product-market fit.
- Talk to, and learn from, your users.
- Bring in consistent revenue.
- Achieve consistent growth.
- Minimize churn.
If you sink time into growth hacking before doing the above, you’re probably just wasting your time.
You need a solid foundation in order for growth hacks to work in a way that actually helps your business long-term. Once you have that foundation, then start growth hacking.
Growth hacking best practices
Once you’re in a place where you can start growth hacking, you’ll find hacks all over the internet. You’ll probably start dreaming up your own, too! But keep a few things in mind as you dive in:
- Retaining customers is easier than getting new ones. That should always be the priority. Focus on product and users first.
- Growth hacking only works if these tactics are part of a bigger strategy. Don't do a bunch of little one-offs.
- Review the data, not just the results of a hack, but within the context of the comprehensive data set.
- Growth hacking is most effective in businesses that are already bringing in revenue and growing.
- Growth hacks don't make your product better, nor do they create a need.
- Don't take advantage of people. Many of the tactics you’ll find out there will use psychology to manipulate people's emotions to make them more likely to buy something. Skip these.
- Put a lot of focus into your copywriting. If grammar and spelling aren’t your jam, get someone to edit it.
- There is no silver bullet.
Top ten growth hacks
There are so many growth hacks out there, but here are 10 solid ones to get your gears turning. Remember, they are not one-size-fits-all:
Growth hacking resources
What are your thoughts on growth hacking? Let's chat below!
Discuss this story.
📰 In the News
from the Growth Trends newsletter by Darko
🤖 AI chatbots are not a replacement for search engines.
👀 The metrics that matter most in B2B marketing.
🖐 Five rules of thumb for UI web design.
📖 The Performance Max Interactive Guide for Google Ads API.
💔 Couples who meet on dating apps are more likely to divorce early.
Check out Growth Trends for more curated news items focused on user acquisition and new product ideas.
🗣 Top PR Hacks for Founders
from The Hustle newsletter by Julia Janks
The Signal: Help a Reporter (HARO) connects reporters, bloggers, and other content creators with industry experts who serve as sources for their writing.
It's a win-win: Writers find credible sources, and industry experts get free PR. Trendster Patrick Kucharson used the service to land his gift idea newsletter a mention in The New York Times' annual gift guide.
This may sound too good to be true, but many other Trendsters have successfully used HARO to get featured in publications like Women's Health, Forbes, Business Insider, and The Washington Post.
But it's not easy. After sifting through mountains of source requests (~300 a day), Patrick responded to 50 before he landed the NYT gig.
*Source: Trends Facebook group
This is what the Trends community has to say about using HARO, and other PR hacks:
1. Craft the right response to source requests:
- Be concise.
- Be sincere. Don't use a template.
- Wish them luck with their story.
- Use a hook to reel them in. PR expert Dan Chan says:
I really use the angle of being a pre-IPO PayPal employee to get journalists to open my emails.
2. Use filters to save time:
Wading through ~300 source requests every day is a full-time job. According to Tyler Cook:
We use [HARO], and the only way I've found it to be effective is by setting up really specific inbox filters.
Here's a Loom from Tyler showing you exactly how he does it:
*Source: Tyler Cook's Loom
Use mail rules to send appropriate source requests to a specific email folder or address.
3. Skip the middleman:
While PR experts Dan Chan and Amie Sparrow have both had success with HARO, they agree that it can pay to skip the middleman.
Dan, who has been featured in The Hustle, BuzzFeed, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, and Business Insider, uses LinkedIn Sales Navigator to pitch journalists.
Dan says:
I often keep in contact with reporters, and feed them interesting tidbits to start conversations on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. It's all about top-of-mind awareness.
If you're just starting out, Dan recommends going after local media and smaller publications first:
It's easier to get their attention, and you'll get better at telling your story each time you get featured. Also, consider pitching your school or alumni association, as they love to feature successful alumni.
Amie leverages IFTT (If This, Then That) to mine Twitter for PR leads. She creates a spreadsheet with tweets containing the hashtag #JournoRequest, searches for relevant keywords, and contacts the reporter directly.
According to Amie:
My response rate is way higher when I email the journalist directly via email, versus contacting them via HARO with everyone else.
Here's a Loom from Amie showing you exactly how she does it!
Have you had success with landing PR? Share your experience below!
Subscribe to The Hustle newsletter for more.
🧠 Harry's Growth Tip
from the Marketing Examples newsletter by Harry Dry
The old way ("Enough of this...”) versus the new way (“It's time for a new doc...”):
Go here for more short, sweet, practical marketing tips.
Subscribe to Marketing Examples for more.
⏳ Niklas Wenzel Launched a Chrome Extension in 14 Hours
by Niklas Wenzel
Hi, founders! I'm Niklas Wenzel, and I built and launched CheckoutBreeze, a Chrome extension for Shopify developers, in 14 hours.
Here's how I did it!
The idea
While co-developing a Shopify app, I had to make a lot of test purchases. I quickly grew tired of mindlessly clicking through the checkout flow and entering payment details.
This consumed a lot of time and, more importantly, was a distraction from focusing on the issue at hand. Context switching can be a pain.
To solve this issue, I decided to write a quick Chrome extension that would automatically click through the Shopify checkout flow.
Implementation
I had never developed a Chrome extension, so I asked ChatGPT to create a first draft for me. The actual code it produced was useless, but it gave me the basic file structure of a Chrome extension. That saved me 30 minutes of reading documentation.
The rest consisted of writing various DOM mutations:
- Detect whether we’re on a Shopify checkout page.
- Autofill all of the form fields on the page.
- Submit the form.
It currently only works on Shopify stores, not yet on Wix stores. But I'm open to making a version for Wix stores, too!
Publishing
Publishing the extension was quite easy, due to Google’s good documentation.
However, extensions require manual review before being listed on the store. In my case, this delayed publishing by one day, which was totally acceptable.
Getting my first user
I sent the extension to the developer whose Shopify app I had worked on. I already knew that he would find it useful, which was great. He’s been happily using it for a few days now!
Monetization
I decided to monetize the extension indirectly.
Given that only ~500 people on this planet would ever find it useful, it would not make economic sense to spend a lot of time marketing the extension as a monthly subscription. Developers hate subscriptions, anyway.
Instead, I decided to use the extension to generate leads for my software development coaching and freelance services. After 15 years of software development, coaching other developers and doing freelance work pays far better than this extension ever could.
Discuss this story.
🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick
by Tweetmaster Flex
I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:
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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to James Fleischmann, Darko, Julia Janks, Harry Dry, and Niklas Wenzel for contributing posts. —Channing
