DREIESKIVA​|Roald Kvam

In today’s hypercompetitive business landscape, building a great product is just the beginning. The real challenge lies in getting it in front of the right people — quickly, cost-effectively, and at scale. That’s where growth hacking comes in.

Coined by Sean Ellis in 2010, “growth hacking” refers to data-driven, creative strategies designed to rapidly acquire and retain customers. Especially relevant for startups and resource-constrained teams, growth hacking is not about traditional marketing. It’s about smart, iterative experimentation across the entire customer journey.

This article explores the fundamentals of growth hacking, how it differs from traditional marketing, and practical tactics you can use to drive rapid customer acquisition.

What Is Growth Hacking?

Growth hacking is a mindset and methodology that prioritizes scalable growth above all else. It blends marketing, product, analytics, and creativity to identify the most efficient paths to user acquisition, engagement, and retention.

Key characteristics of growth hacking:

• Obsessive focus on growth
• Agile, fast experimentation
• Data-informed decision-making
• Cross-functional collaboration
• Resourcefulness over big budgets

Growth hacking isn’t just about acquiring users — it’s about driving measurable growth at every stage of the funnel: acquisition, activation, retention, referral, and revenue (AARRR, also known as the Pirate Metrics).

Growth Hacking vs. Traditional Marketing

Growth Hacking	Traditional Marketing
Startup-oriented	Corporate-oriented
Small budget, high creativity	Large budget, broad campaigns
Agile, experiment-based	Campaign-based, planned in advance
Product and engineering integrated	Often siloed from product development
Full funnel focus (AARRR)	Top-of-funnel focused (awareness/traffic)

The Growth Hacker’s funnel (AARRR)

1. Acquisition: How do users find you?
2. Activation: Do they have a great first experience?
3. Retention: Do they come back and engage?
4. Referral: Do they tell others?
5. Revenue: Do they become paying customers?

Each stage presents an opportunity for creative experimentation and rapid optimization.

Creative, low-cost growth tactics

Let’s explore some tried-and-true (and innovative) tactics used by growth hackers around the world — especially for customer acquisition:

1. Viral loops & referrals

Encourage users to invite others by creating shareable value.

Examples:

• Dropbox: “Get more storage by inviting friends”
• Airbnb: Dual-sided referral credits (both referrer and referee win)
• Robinhood: “Get a free stock when a friend signs up”

Tip: Make the referral process seamless, easy to share, and valuable enough to motivate.

2. Launch hacking

Make your product launch an event that drives traction.

Examples:

• Post on Product Hunt and Reddit communities
• Leverage BetaList and Indie Hackers
• Use “Coming Soon” landing pages to collect emails pre-launch

Tip: Build anticipation and activate early adopters before you even go live.

3. Content marketing with SEO & distribution

Create high-value, niche-specific content that attracts your ideal users — then distribute strategically.

Examples:

• Guides, tutorials, listicles (e.g., “Top 10 tools for remote teams”)
• Guest posting on relevant blogs
• SEO-optimized landing pages or microsites

Tip: Identify high-intent keywords and pair them with long-form, evergreen content.

4. Product-led growth features

Make the product itself a marketing channel.

Examples:

• Calendly: Every calendar invite links back to the product
• Notion: Public templates and shareable docs
• Loom: Shared videos drive traffic back to Loom’s site

Tip: Design features that naturally lead users to share your product in their daily work.

5. Community building

Create or join communities where your target users already hang out.

Examples:

• Slack groups, Discord servers, LinkedIn groups
• Hosting webinars or AMA sessions
• Engaging in comments and conversations in niche forums

Tip: Focus on helping and adding value — not just promotion.

6. Partnerships & co-marketing

Leverage another company’s audience by creating mutual value.

Examples:

• Joint webinars or campaigns
• Bundled offers or discounts
• Content collaborations or newsletters

Tip: Choose partners who share your audience but aren’t direct competitors.

7. Tools & widgets

Create free tools or calculators that solve a small but valuable problem — and bring users into your ecosystem.

Examples:

• HubSpot’s Website Grader
• CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer
• Buffer’s Pablo image tool

Tip: Include subtle CTAs that invite users to explore your main product.

8. Retargeting & custom audiences

Use pixel tracking to re-engage visitors who didn’t convert the first time.

Examples:

• Facebook/Instagram retargeting ads
• Google display retargeting
• LinkedIn custom audiences for B2B

Tip: Segment audiences based on behavior (e.g., viewed pricing page but didn’t sign up).

9. PR and social proof

Earn media attention through unique stories, milestones, or data insights.

Examples:

• Share user metrics (e.g., “100,000 trees planted!”)
• Use founder stories to connect emotionally
• Get featured in niche podcasts or newsletters

Tip: Package your story in a way that appeals to journalists and influencers.

10. Cold outreach with personalization

Reach out directly to leads — but make it personal, relevant, and helpful.

Examples:

• Personalized emails to startup founders or decision-makers
• Video messages using tools like Loom
• Follow-up sequences with social proof

Tip: Focus on solving a specific problem, not selling features.

How to design and run growth experiments

1. Identify the bottleneck: Where in the funnel are you losing users?
2. Form a hypothesis: If we do X, it will improve Y because Z.
3. Design a test: What’s the minimum effort way to test this?
4. Run the experiment: Launch it to a subset of users or channels.
5. Analyze results: Use data to determine what worked.
6. Iterate or scale: Improve the tactic or double down on what worked.

The Growth Hacker’s mindset

• Obsess over the user: What do they care about? What’s holding them back?
• Move fast: Launch MVPs, not masterpieces.
• Test everything: The best idea is the one that works — not the one that sounds good.
• Learn continuously: Every failed test teaches you something.
• Collaborate: Growth is a team sport — marketers, product managers, engineers, and data analysts must work together.

— — —

Growth hacking isn’t about shortcuts or gimmicks — it’s about smart, data-informed creativity that turns limited resources into exponential results. By experimenting quickly, learning from real user behavior, and aligning product with customer value, startups and companies of all sizes can build momentum and scale efficiently.

Customer acquisition doesn’t have to be expensive — but it does have to be intentional.

Start small. Test fast. Learn faster. And keep asking: “What’s the most creative way we can grow today?”

Because in the world of startups, it’s not just the best product that wins — it’s the one that reaches its audience first, fastest, and most meaningfully.