Stories of Applying the "Growth Hacking" Strategy

Every startup has its own path to success. There isn't any template which is immediately suitable for all types of startups. All steps and decisions taken adjust the conditions of each startup. In strategy growth hacking, the implementation steps may be the same, but the data and execution always follow what is happening in the field.

Here are some stories about growth hacking by several startups compiled from various sources.

Grab

Currently Grab be one of two services on demand dominating transportation in Indonesia. His work is no less successful in Southeast Asia. Growth Grab in recent years it has not only been a matter of investment received from investors, but also hard work to present a service that users are interested in.

Grab believes that the passion in the pursuit of growth is "disruptive or distracted". Since startups started to appear, the term disruptor indeed attached to technology startups that disrupt the dominance of conventional services. Grab put the spirit of being a "disturb" as a DNA to continue to grow. If adjusted to the current conditions, to be precise in Indonesia, Grab still have to "disturb" their strongest competitor, GO-JEK.

In an article, Grab mention apply growth loops to acquire customers across their area of ​​operations. A looping pattern to keep increasing users.

Type growth loops used Grab is:

• Acquisition. Actively acquire the right users through need or observable segmentation.
• Activate users to change behavior through incentives.
• Increase engagement user. It's like a user cycle, keeping it up by increasing engagement.
• Drive or seek system-wide virality to get the desired boost.

Which is conducted Grab looks simple, but data availability, field conditions, strategies can be combined to read user needs there.

Grab mentioned that his party did not place a team growth hacking under the marketing division. They apply it in the engineering to make it easier to conduct experiments, A/B testing, and apply them in different markets on an ongoing basis.

"As a data-driven business, we are focused on how we best define successful experiments. Having a trusted source to prioritize and evaluate our experiments ensures that we can move quickly and consistently," the party wrote. Grab.

There are many features that are finally born from the team growth hacking. All are also adapted to their respective markets. As a company operating in a number of different countries, understanding users in one country is very important.

Duolingo

Duolingo is one of the apps whose prestige has skyrocketed in the last year in Indonesia Google Play. Its position as an application for learning foreign languages ​​makes them have to look for different and unique ways. Duolingo is arguably quite successful for now because it has crossed the 150 million mark for users. Behind this growth is Gina Gotthild, Dulingo's VP of Growth & Marketing, who is said to have played an important role in Duolingo's "explosive" growth. As revealed via the GrowthHackers blog, Gina shares some key points about Duolingo's growth.

Setting up a collaborative team

Duolingo knows that ideas can come from anywhere. For that they really appreciate ideas from anyone. The employee recruitment process is also quite selective. It says they only hire candidates with A+ labels that match the team's needs. It is hoped that they will be able to provide input into the team without fear of losing their jobs.

Duolingo has a dedicated team to accelerate growth. Gina directs four people engineer for some projects, such as SEO, Android product changes, iOS product changes and emails or notifications. In addition, Gina also supervises two part-time designers, employees for copywriting, public relations and one project manager. All elements cooperate with each other to target and deadline which is determined.

Focus on product-market fit before growing

Plants need strong roots to grow upwards. That's something Duolingo understands very well. Before planning for growth, Duolingo worked hard to build a solid product that users expected.

Gina believes that marketing efforts will be much more effective once the product is well built. Everyone at Duolingo spends most of their time making better products through A/B testing. They measure all metrics and follow up the next day.

Retention is very important

For Gina and Duolingo, you can force people to use a product or app, but keeping it in check requires building the product and optimizing retention. Retention will be the focus when it comes to growth.

Bukalapak

Bukalapak is currently one of the top e-commerce players in Indonesia. They are constantly innovating in terms of products and continuously improving their services. Some of the new services they have introduced in the last two years include BukaMobil, BukaEmas, to BukaReksa. They don't just appear. There is a need measurement process there.

On Bukalapak's Youtube channel, several videos explain how Bukalapak manages a team to gain growth. In a video firechat with Willix Halim, COO of Bukalapak, he explained that Bukalapak has several squad, a small group of several people who have different roles, from engineer to project manager who is responsible with north star metrics each.

The squad will run their own group to achieve their respective targets of course with a process that is almost similar to many successful startups out there, analyzing data, making changes, running A/B testing, implementing and doing all these processes iteratively.

During the same session, Willix provides advice to startups that are in the early stages and want to get growth. One point to emphasize is setting priorities and focus. After generating MVP (Minimum Viable Product), the next focus is user acquisition.

After successfully getting a number of users, for example the first 100 thousand users, do the next step. See data up close and in more detail. Find out what aspects attracted them, what kept them and what made them leave.

- source: Grab, GrowthHackers, Bukalapak