The original growth hacker reveals his secrets | Sean Ellis (author of “Hacking Growth”)
The original growth hacker reveals his secrets | Sean Ellis (author of “Hacking Growth”)Sean Ellis, a pioneer in growth hacking, discusses PMF, activation strategies, AI's impact, and more from his career at Dropbox and Eventbrite.Listen now on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. — Brought to you by: — Sean Ellis is one of the earliest and most influential thinkers and operators in growth. He coined the term “growth hacking,” invented the ICE prioritization framework, was one of the earliest people to use freemium as a growth lever, and, most famously, developed the Sean Ellis Test for product-market fit (which a large percentage of founders use today to track if they’ve found PMF). Over the course of his career, Sean was head of growth at Dropbox and Eventbrite; helped companies like Microsoft and Nubank refine their growth strategy; was on the founding team of LogMeIn, which sold for over $4 billion; and is the author of one of the most popular growth books of all time, Hacking Growth, which has sold over 750,000 copies. In our conversation, he shares:
Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-original-growth-hacker-sean-ellis Some takeaways:
Where to find Sean Ellis: • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanellis/ • Website: https://www.seanellis.me/ • Substack: https://substack.com/@seanellis Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Sean’s background (02:18) The Sean Ellis test explained (06:28) The 40% rule (08:06) Case study: improving product-market fit (12:34) Understanding and leveraging customer feedback (16:50) Challenges and nuances of product-market fit (22:22) When to use the Sean Ellis Test (23:46) When not to use the Sean Ellis Test and other caveats (27:13) Defining your own threshold and how the Sean Ellis Test came about (36:13) Tools for implementing the survey (37:30) Transitioning from surveys to retention cohorts (39:13) Nubank’s approach (40:18) Case study: Superhuman’s strategy for increasing product-market fit (45:18) Coining the term “growth hacking” (48:24) How to approach growth (57:25) Improving activation and onboarding (01:05:17) Identifying effective growth channels (01:10:28) The power of customer conversations (01:12:43) Developing the Dropbox referral program (01:14:47) The importance of word of mouth (01:15:23) Freemium models and engagement (01:19:21) Picking a North Star metric (01:24:30) The evolution of growth strategies (01:27:12) The ICE and RICE frameworks (01:30:11) AI’s role in growth and experimentation (01:32:52) Final thoughts and lightning round Referenced: • Hacking Growth: How Today’s Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success: https://www.amazon.com/Hacking-Growth-Fastest-Growing-Companies-Breakout/dp/045149721X • The Sean Ellis Test for Measuring Product-Market Fit: https://productcoalition.com/using-sean-ellis-test-for-measuring-your-product-market-fit-c8ac98053c2c • Xobni: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xobni • LogMeIn: https://www.logmein.com/ • Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products: https://www.amazon.com/Hooked-How-Build-Habit-Forming-Products/dp/1591847788 • VistaPrint: https://www.vistaprint.com/ • VistaPrint Acquires Webs for $117 Million: https://www.inc.com/courtney-rubin/vistaprint-acquires-webs.html • Strategies for becoming less distracted and improving focus | Nir Eyal (author of Indistractable and Hooked): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/strategies-for-becoming-less-distractible • Wix: https://www.wix.com/ • Weebly: https://www.weebly.com/ • Shreyas Doshi on pre-mortems, the LNO framework, the three levels of product work, why most execution problems are strategy problems, and ROI vs. opportunity cost thinking: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/episode-3-shreyas-doshi • Brian Chesky’s new playbook: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach • Be fundamentally different, not incrementally better | Jag Duggal (Nubank, Facebook, Google, Quantcast): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/be-fundamentally-different-jag-duggal • Qualaroo: https://qualaroo.com/ • SurveyMonkey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/ • Nubank: https://nubank.com.br/en/ • Kissmetrics: https://www.kissmetrics.io/ • Charles Kettering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_F._Kettering • Zynga: https://www.zynga.com/ • Bounce: https://usebounce.com/ • Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/ • Jamie Siminoff on X: https://x.com/jamiesiminoff • Albert Ni on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertni/ • Choosing Your North Star Metric: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/choosing-your-north-star-metric • ICE Framework: The original prioritization framework for marketers: https://growthmethod.com/ice-framework/ • Prioritizing: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/prioritizing • Introducing DRICE: a modern prioritization framework: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/introducing-drice-a-modern-prioritization • Presenting to Win: The Art of Telling Your Story: https://www.amazon.com/Presenting-Win-Telling-Expanded-paperback/dp/0134093283 • Oleg Yakubenkov on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oleg-yakubenkov-a5710850/ • Paris 2024 Olympics: https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024 • BlackBerry on Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/movie/blackberry-f8e5eede-b43a-41db-b5b6-df9f4233bd4b • Tetris on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/tetris/umc.cmc.4evmgcam356pzgxs2l7a18d7b • Pack Gear hanging suitcase organizer: https://www.amazon.com/Pack-Gear-Portable-Luggage-Organizer/dp/B07XCY72G7 Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. You're currently a free subscriber to Lenny's Newsletter. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription. |
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