18 in-depth Growth Hack Studies
A list of 18 growth hacks from companies that have scaled to billions. There are things we indiehackers can pick up from them.
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A list of 18 growth hacks from companies that have scaled to billions. There are things we indiehackers can pick up from them.
Okay so let me play devil's advocate for a second:
I opened up the site and I started reading Airbnb's. Cool story don't get me wrong but they never explained how they got their first 3 guests to begin with. I find these case-studies interesting but very wishy-washy from an indiehacker perspective.
Airbnb founders made a website explaining the whole airbeds and breakfast deal, but:
Then suddenly, they meet Paul Graham from Ycombinator...who got them the intro? How does one even just "meet" Paul Graham?
Then the story gets pretty much more about scaling than bootstrapping at all...
So I'll stop here...
I think they got their first users from listing their place on craigslist for people to stay at. There was a design conference in town and all the hotels were booked. So ppl had no choice but to use them.
About the Paul Graham part, back then Ycom and Paul Graham weren't as popular. They probably got intros or just cold-mailed him.
These growth hacks DO have lessons we can use, IF you dig through all the fluff. AirBnB story was about hacking craigslist.
I think they posted on behalf of their user (with a post to Airbnb button) as opposed to doing a bot. That was the genius.
The problem with “growth hacks” is the more people know about them, the less effective they are. That’s why I find the terms “growth hacking” and “big companies” weird being in the same sentence.
I think a lot of people think the same and not a lot of ppl end up doing these hacks.
I'm building a review management SaaS for a client & I've noticed that no one is doing anything besides, ads to grow in that industry.
Ex. These tools could have added "replied via X" on every reply a biz makes to a review (like the hotmail growth hack). But no one is doing that. I see it in industry after industry.
But when people do try it, it does work. I mean look at how tally.so did it: https://blog.tally.so/bootstrapping-our-saas-from-10k-to-20k-mrr/
Growth hacks are stupid ideas and these hacks don't work for every industry. I had personally faced it!
So, rather than using just hacks focus on an overall long-term strategy!