Hypergrowth Marketing Playbook: The OpenAI Case Study Part 1

Most marketers struggle to get awareness and leads, but lucky marketers in hypergrowth face different challenges. OpenAI is one such company in one such market. This is a three-part blog where I detail drivers of hypergrowth across the market, marketing, and expansion.?

Riding the Mega-Market Tsunami: Why Timing is Everything

Most hypergrowth companies are capitalizing on a substantial market change: Apple the shift to mobile phones, Amazon the shift to online ordering, AWS the shift to cloud-as-a-service, Zoom the shift to work-from-home, and Atlassian, the shift to Agile development and new ways of team collaboration. When a mega-trend massively shifts behavior, a company can grow massively in excess of its own efforts. They surf the wave instead of trying to create waves (like the rest of us). Despite our wildest dreams, it is nearly impossible for marketing to CREATE a market tsunami.

The First Mover Advantage: Hard to Catch if They Execute Well

In the case of OpenAI specifically, their launch, early popularity, and first-mover advantage are substantial. It became one of the fastest products in history to reach 1M users (5 days) and 100M users (2 months). Sam Altman has become the almost-official spokesperson for all of AI. Few can compete with his personal 3 Million followers on X. OpenAI itself has 3.7 M followers on X, 2M on Reddit, 1.3M on Instagram, and more than 100M downloads on Google play.

Netflix had this advantage, making it hard for even the deep-pocketed Amazon Prime or Hulu to catch them. Tesla had the first-mover, as did Amazon. If the first-to-market executes well, it’s difficult to catch them. But they must execute well - Facebook famously overtook Myspace.

Beyond the Hype: Why Product Excellence is Non-Negotiable

But having a fantastic market and being first to market isn’t enough. Marketing is an amazing megaphone that amplifies a company’s success. But behind real hypergrowth is a product or customer experience that’s innovative and fantastic...

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Read the rest of the article at carilu.com including specific investment strategiees from Atlassian, partnership and distribution strategies and more.

This is part of a 3-series blog. Tomorrow I will publish Part2 -

• Fanning the Flames: Earned Media is Way Better than Advertising
• Welcome to the Social Age: Where Market Momentum Goes Viral
• Content as Currency: Building Trust Through Value
• The User Content Engine: Amplifying Authentic Voices

And then, part 3:?

• Friction-Free Growth: Make it Easy to Learn, Buy and Expand
• The Community Catalyst: Turning Users into Advocates
• The Expansion Playbook: Growing Beyond Core Markets
• The Perpetual Chase: Why Hypergrowth Never Sleeps
• The Hypergrowth Playbook Applies to All of Us

See you tomorrow!