Growth Hacking Bootcamp: 5 applied workshops for high-tech companies

Businesses need applied growth hacking education. No moreover is over the moon to hear another 2008 Dropbox success story. As the discipline is evolving, we need to develop new educational platforms and formats to cater to the needs of companies who aim to adopt the growth hacking methodologies. 

This summer I partnered with Technology Park Ljubljana and GrowthHackers.com to execute the first-ever Growth Hacking Bootcamp in Slovenia. After nurturing a 2.2K local Growth hacking community with meetups, conferences, and AMAs, common feedback was that it is very interesting to hear how others are applying growth hacking methodology, but there is no clear toolbox how to develop a growth program in companies. 

In Europe, the reality of the majority of companies is that they are bootstrapping. They don’t have millions of venture capital available to invest in growth and they have to maintain regular marketing operations (branding, content creation, product marketing, etc.) in addition to running growth teams.

Unlike legendary unicorns like Uber, Twitter, and Facebook, our reality is that due to the scarcity of resources, we often have to wear more hats than professionals who work in highly specialized teams of larger companies. This is what we kept close at heart when formulating the curriculum for the program. h hacking bootcamp Ljubljana

Growth Hacking Bootcamp = 5 applied workshops 

The program was intended for high-tech companies with international traction. We had a vivid mix of hardware, marketplaces, e-commerce, apps and SaaS in the first generation of the program. Some well-known Slovenian companies such as Visionect, Chipolo, DHH (Domenca & Domovanje), Mikrocop and OriginTrail attended the training.

When we announced the Bootcamp, the response surprised us pleasantly. There were 35 places available and 160 people applied. The selection process was difficult, but in the end, we were happy to welcome 16 selected teams to the program.

At every workshop, attendees were building important fundamentals of their growth operations and generated new ideas for their experiment backlog. The level of interaction and knowledge exchange between attendants was stunning. The program created a valuable opportunity for different but like-minded companies to grow together. 

Main lessons learned & workshop content

Participants attended 5 growth hacking related workshops: 

• 1st workshop was intended to lay down the basic understanding of a growth process, define their north star metric, explain how companies are successfully applying the growth hacking methodologies and empower participants to develop their first experiment ideas for the growing backlog. I ran the workshop similarly to what I am doing when we have in-house training for the teams. 

• At the second workshop Ma?a Crnkovi?, CX lead at Futura, laid down the fundamentals for user research, a/b testing, analytics, and customer discovery. Attendees prepared a Google Data Studio dashboard. 

• 3rd workshop by Facebook advertising and e-commerce expert Jure Knehtl was extremely applied. He shared multiple examples from his experience of taking Vigo Shop from 0 to 27 million of yearly revenue in a year. Moreover, he highlighted several international trends and developments that are shaping the industry. Fabulous experiment ideas were given. 

• Due to the high number of B2B oriented companies at the workshop, it was important to lay down the fundamentals of customer lifecycle marketing, lead generation, lead scoring and marketing automation. Ga?per Repina, CMO of Optiweb took us to this journey. 
• Last but not least, Andrej ?kraba, CMO at NiceHash held an interesting workshop on how growth and marketing are related. Different team structures, innovation cycles, and traditional models can complement growth operations beautifully. 

How does our success look like? 

At the end of the workshop, attendees got certificates of attendance. As a special treat, we also gave each attendee a chance to enjoy a relaxing massage! Another surprise came from the DHH team that delighted us with a delicious cake. Of course, everybody wanted a piece of their logo :) Thanks so much

We also handed out a program satisfaction survey to the attendees and ratings were through the roof. There always is room for improvement and we will carefully consider all feedback, and generate more, but from awesome social media shouts outs, it is already clear that the program delivered added value and got attendees excited to successfully continue on their path of growth hacking methodology adoption.

I’d like to thank all lecturers and co-organisers Vlado Begovi?, Vera Nuni? and Pedro Pedro Clivati for bringing the vision of applied growth hacking education in Slovenia to life. Based on the stunning feedback that we got from attendees, we are very likely to repeat the program in fall 2019.

If you are interested in joining, you are welcome to reach out to be the first to know when we launch. The waiting list for the next program is already 100+ people strong. 

Happy summer & good luck growing!