How can startups achieve extraordinary growth?
Every entrepreneur intends to achieve the fast growth achieved by companies such as Uber and Facebook — to propel his or her young firm into the stratosphere in record time.
Fortunately, it does not have to stay a fantasy. Silicon Valley’s phenomenally successful start-ups got to where they are now through creative marketing and positioning tactics that every entrepreneur can use.
But what exactly are these techniques? In this post, you’ll learn about some of the growth hacks that have benefited firms like GitHub, Yelp, and many more.
Growth hacking and its role in spectacular success of Silicon Valley start-ups.
You’ve probably heard of Silicon Valley, which is home to a variety inventive and successful start-up firms. However, you may be surprised to find how successful some businesses are.
The numbers are simply astounding: in a relatively short amount of time, these start-ups have earned billions of dollars in sales and attracted hundreds of millions of users.
Take, for example, Uber. The transportation service was formally launched in 2011 and has earned international reputation in less than five years; the corporation is valued at $62 billion as of 2015. What is noteworthy is how quickly the economy grew in compared to the old economy.
Start-ups reach this level of success by ditching traditional growth strategies.
Uber, for example, did not rely on traditional marketing tactics such as pricey sponsored commercials. Instead, they used data analytics to target their clients and depended on viral and word-of-mouth marketing to grow their consumer base.
This new business approach became known as growth hacking.
This marketing strategy focuses on boosting growth as rapidly as possible and is not confined to a single industry. Mobile apps, business-to-business services, markets, and social networks may all benefit from growth hacking.
There is also no straightforward strategy for successful growth hacking. It entails a variety of aspects that are integrated to create exceptional performance through recruiting, maintaining, and earning income from new clients.
Growth hackers lead teams of professionals from many industries that are equally comfortable with scientific thinking as they are with data, analytics, and creativity.
Moving further, we’ll look at some of the finest growth hacks and how some of today’s most successful start-ups used them.
Starting small and gradually building is a guaranteed method to get traction.
It may be tempting to launch your must-have product or service on a worldwide scale once you’ve discovered it. However, many start-ups have seen this strategy backfire. Going too big too quickly puts you at danger of becoming a minor player scattered across multiple marketplaces.
It’s best to start big in a local specialized market to build attention and momentum.
Many successful Silicon Valley start-ups heeded this advise, capitalizing on the local San Francisco Bay Area market to gain traction.
This is where Uber originally debuted its services, initially focused on one city before expanding to additional cities at a rate of one per month. Uber anticipated that the San Francisco tech community would be receptive to their services; the firm capitalized on this by sponsoring tech and venture events and even offered free rides to guests!
Uber leveraged its original client base to gather crucial industry and market insights. With this information, the company could effectively alter its approach when its time to grow.
You may develop the type of favorable word-of-mouth exposure that will allow you to expand by focusing your efforts on meeting the expectations of one specific audience.
Yelp performed the same thing in its first year in San Francisco. By focusing on one city, they demonstrated that they could collect a large number of evaluations and develop a full entertainment guide for the area. After establishing their reputation in San Francisco, they could go on to the next city.
A freemium business model is an excellent method to get users to sample your service, but it is not without risk.
Have you ever been browsing mobile apps and chosen to test out a free version before making a purchase? You are most certainly not alone. Many businesses understand the advantages of providing a free service, or a freemium model, in order to create income in the long run.
A freemium model allows users to utilize a basic free service with the opportunity to upgrade to a premium version for a fee.
Evernote, a note-taking app, made millions of dollars using this business strategy. Evernote users may use the app for free, but they must pay a membership price for additional services including as storage capacity, offline access, and device synchronization.
Evernote was able to employ this method with confidence since they found that the more time users spent with the app, the more involved they got with it.
The key to the freemium model is to provide an update with a noticeable increase in value to entice people to purchase it.
Otherwise, you suffer the greatest danger associated with the freemium model, which is providing clients with no compelling incentive to upgrade.
领英推荐
When the developers of GitHub started their platform as a free service with limitless public storage, they encountered a similar dilemma. They ran into two difficulties with this model: first, all user material was visible to anybody who joined, which some large firms didn’t like; and second, their server fees were rapidly building up.
Fortunately, a solution emerged. GitHub opted to provide private storage that more protective businesses may pay for, while keeping the public repository free.
Offering free material or tools is another effective strategy to reach a larger audience.
While the freemium model has shown to be successful for certain businesses, not all free offers must include a primitive version of a premium product or service.
Giving away free information or tools to the public is another tried and true method of generating revenue. This is not to be confused with a free demo version of a product; rather, it refers to a free stand-alone offer designed to assist a potential client.
However, like with the freemium model, the ultimate objective is for free material to attract paying clients.
This is the method that the content marketing business HubSpot used effectively when it first launched in 2006. The firm provides tools and services to help customers increase their commercial visibility, such as social platform marketing, content management, and search engine optimization.
HubSpot devised an ingenious method of marketing itself and informing clients that its services were required. It developed Marketing Grader, a standalone tool that allowed users to enter a URL and view the website’s performance rating. What better method to improve the site’s performance than to use Hubspot’s services?
Free tools like these are typically beneficial to both your business and your consumers.
This strategy also allows you to give free support to potential consumers while gathering critical information that you can later utilise should they express an interest in paying for your services.
This is precisely what HubSpot did, and it enabled them to significantly increase their client base while reducing their sales personnel to a bare minimum. They were able to collect a large number of client contacts while also tempting people to pay for their services by releasing a free tool to the market.
Improve your visibility by going viral and getting social.
Now that we’ve learnt how start-ups may fast optimize their growth, let’s look at two methods a firm can swiftly maximize its market exposure.
First, viral marketing, while difficult to control, may be a key to success.
Managing vitality is creating conditions that allow your idea, product, or information to spread swiftly from one person to the next and reach global overnight.
The good news about vitality is that it is quite inexpensive. The disadvantage of vitality is that it frequently occurs accidentally and for no apparent cause.
Upworthy, a media website that specialists in viral content and emotional, surprise films that viewers want to share, is one firm that may have broken the viral formula. Upworthy has 88 million unique monthly visitors just 20 months after it debuted.
Upworthy’s posts are being analysed for virality to uncover the “secret sauce.” An item might be given up to 25 alternative titles to see which one gets the most hits!
Social media networks are another option for websites to gain more exposure.
In the era of Facebook, it is obvious that developing a feeling of community may help you attract and increase your consumer base.
One of the secrets to Yelp’s success is that, whereas other review sites featured anonymous users, Yelp built a robust network of subscribing members, each with images and detailed profiles. Because the active users had an identity and were part of a community, their opinions were more trustworthy than those of an anonymous stranger.
GitHub, the largest programmer community on the web, also established a similar network. This has converted GitHub into a social network that even headhunters may use to find new employees!
In conclusion
The traditional marketing methods are no longer effective in the new economy. A successful startup must use growth hacks to uncover new ways to compete. Top-performing businesses are maximising development, skillfully targeting clients, and putting themselves on the fast track to success by utilising new and efficient approaches.
Practical advice:
Check to see if the freemium model is good for you.
Before using the freemium model, consider if your product or service needs a substantial amount of effort to learn how to use. Customers are more likely to utilize your service if they pay for it, if the answer is yes. According to research, a client who buys for something will generally take the time to learn how to utilize it since they consider it an investment. On the other side, because it is a free product, it may be dismissed without being given a fair opportunity.
As an Entrepreneur from last 10 years I’ve seen it everything, from the highs of expanding to 6-figure months to the lows of late inventory and crazy customers, and everything in between. I’ve already been there and done that. I appreciate passing on tried-and-true ideas I’ve picked up along the way to help individuals establish the businesses of their dreams.
If you want to start a startup or need live mentorship in growing your startup join my “ 4 weeks intense live course to Launch, Grow and Lead your startup “ starting on June 20.
Connect with me on LinkedIn
Follow me for Leadership, Entrepreneurship and Investment advice.
If you like this article, comment, share and like it so other people can read it.