Growth Hacking Sharing from Strikingly

Growth Hacking for Early Stage Startups
Dafeng Guo, CTO, Strikingly.com

Twitter: @dfguo

Weibo: @郭达峰
START
"You don't need a growth hacker (at first)"
@andrewchen
Why?

Not enough data
Statistical variance is high in small data set.
Optimization has limited effect
Optimization can't give you breakthroughs.
"Do things that don't scale."

- Paul Graham, YC
Techniques and tactics Strikingly used at early stage.

Everyday I'm hustling...
Show me
Hypothetically

A user visited your landing page and signed up.
Immediately, he dropped. What happened?
1. Talk to your users
Seriously, this is the best way to find out what's going wrong.

We send emails to people who dropped. Period.

Great way to find out the problem!

Great way to engage your users!
You will be amazed by the response rate.
Email copy needs to be:

1. targeted

2. short and personal

3. offer help

4. don't design it
2. Find your super fans
"Make 100 people love your product, instead of 1mil people sort of like you."
- Paul Buchheit, founder of Gmail and FriendFeed

We added our first 2000 users on Facebook as friends.
We talk to them constantly.
We respond to their questions personally.
We found some similarities
young and aspiring people who want to make a difference

So we started posting things they like
7k likes
42k likes

These people become the core of Strikingly users.
3. Hack Press Release
Press release is a great way to get initial group of users
beta/just launched: niche media
1. Hacker news
2. Betalist
3. App Storm
4. Killer Startups
5. StartupLi.st
6. Erli Bird
7. Bootstrappist
8. Quora
All sorts of startup galleries (see below)

Probably will get you 2-10k users.

[1] 32 places to submit your launching startup
[2] 10 Places To Find Beta Testers For Free
[3] 10 Websites That Boost Your Traffic For Free
Hacking tech blogs and mainstream media
(a lot more hustling)

Google search!
Google News API
Google News API + mechanical turk [1]

Cold email works
Warm intro is even better

Probably will get you another >20k users.

[1] http://customerdevlabs.com/2013/09/24/google-news-api-mturk-press/
We got on these media

And 50+ more
Quick Recap
"Do things that don't scale"

Talk to your users

Create super fans.
Find your super fans
Make 100 people love your product, instead of 1mil people sort of like you.
Hack PR

Great way to get initial group of users.
We are hiring
Email us jobs@strikingly.com

UI/UX Designer

设计师
DevOps Intern/Full-time

运维实习/全职
Front-end

前端
Ruby

后端
Contact me
Let me know if you have any other growth hacking ideas.
Name

Email

Message

Comment

Growth Hacking for Early Stage Startups

Dafeng Guo, CTO, Strikingly.com Twitter: @dfguo Weibo: @郭达峰

"You don't need a growth hacker (at first)"

@andrewchen

Why?

Not enough data

Optimization has limited effect

"Do things that don't scale." - Paul Graham, YC

Techniques and tactics Strikingly used at early stage. Everyday I'm hustling...

Hypothetically

A user visited your landing page and signed up.

Immediately, he dropped. What happened?

1. Talk to your users

Seriously, this is the best way to find out what's going wrong. We send emails to people who dropped. Period. Great way to find out the problem! Great way to engage your users!

You will be amazed by the response rate.

Email copy needs to be: 1. targeted 2. short and personal 3. offer help 4. don't design it

2. Find your super fans

"Make 100 people love your product, instead of 1mil people sort of like you."- Paul Buchheit, founder of Gmail and FriendFeed

We found some similarities

young and aspiring people who want to make a difference

So we started posting things they like

7k likes

42k likes These people become the core of Strikingly users.

3. Hack Press Release

Press release is a great way to get initial group of users

beta/just launched: niche media

Hacking tech blogs and mainstream media

We got on these media

And 50+ more

Quick Recap

"Do things that don't scale"

Talk to your users

Create super fans.

Find your super fans

Make 100 people love your product, instead of 1mil people sort of like you.

Hack PR

Great way to get initial group of users.

We are hiring

Email us jobs@strikingly.com

Contact me

Let me know if you have any other growth hacking ideas.

Dafeng Guo, CTO, Strikingly.com

Twitter: @dfguo

Weibo: @郭达峰

"Do things that don't scale."

- Paul Graham, YC

Techniques and tactics Strikingly used at early stage.

Everyday I'm hustling...

Seriously, this is the best way to find out what's going wrong.

We send emails to people who dropped. Period.

Great way to find out the problem!

Great way to engage your users!

Email copy needs to be:

1. targeted

2. short and personal

3. offer help

4. don't design it

"Make 100 people love your product, instead of 1mil people sort of like you."
- Paul Buchheit, founder of Gmail and FriendFeed

42k likes

These people become the core of Strikingly users.