Awesome growth hacking tips from Nate Barnwell: Hacker is sometimes used to refer to a software engineer, and while a growth hacker may or may not be a programmer, they use technology based solutions to achieve many of their goals. Growth hackers will use software, databases, API’s, and related tools to grow a startup. If a growth hacker is also a programmer they can sometimes make progress more efficiently, but this isn’t required. However, a growth hacker must understand technology very deeply to be successful. If a growth hacker isn’t a programmer they will still have to understand programming enough to coordinate others who do write code. Remember, products are now technology based, and mastering the technology will be essential for growth.

Finishing the second decade of the 20th century, not to start a business, but its growth and continuity have become a priority issue. In this context, growth strategies have become more important than ever and survival in the business world without growth is not sustainable in the long term. We see numerous brilliant growth strategy examples from major companies’ start-up days. Growth is an issue that is needed to be discussed with different approaches. Considering it just as a variety of products is a big mistake. It refers to expanding the product line, services, customer base, company size and more. But the essential need to acquire growth comes from increasing the number of your customers, the rest comes packed with it.

Nathan Barnwell growth hacking strategies: Instead of needing as many leads as possible at the top, a viral loop funnel requires just one satisfied user to share with others. As long as every referral results in at least 1.1 new users, the system continues growing. The milestone referral model is similar to the viral loop in that it relies on incentives to kickstart and sustain it. But milestone referrals add a more intricate, progressive element to the process. Companies that leverage viral loops generally offer a flat, consistent offer for individual referrals — businesses that use milestone referrals offer rewards for hitting specific benchmarks. In many cases, “milestones” are metrics like number of referred friends. For example, a business might include different or increasingly enticing incentives that come with one, five, and 10 referrals as opposed to a fixed incentive for each individual referral. A company will often leverage this strategy to encourage users to bring on a volume of friends and family that suits its specific business goals. The strategy also adds an engaging element to the referral process. When done right, milestone referrals are simple to share with relatively straightforward objectives and enticing, tangible products as rewards.

Startups, for example, often struggle to determine which marketer they should hire first. A growth marketer is a good bet — especially if they already have strong brand guidelines in place. (Setting tone and voice, messaging, and value propositions is not typically something a growth marketer will do.) “They are especially impactful at early-stage companies where there isn’t enough conviction to invest heavily into one given channel, due to lack of validation,” Sookraj told Nate Barnwell. “[Growth marketers] are especially impactful at early-stage companies.” But startups aren’t the only ones who see value in growth marketers. Enterprises should consider adding growth marketers as well, says Sookraj.

The first is a product that people actually consider a “must have.” In the startup world, this is generally referred to as “product/market fit.” Once you’ve validated product/market fit, it then becomes important to define an overall success metric. This success metric should be a “North Star Metric” for the entire team to gauge the success of the business. The right North Star Metric tracks cumulative value delivered across a growing customer base. This is a much more sustainable growth indicator than something like registrations, downloads or even revenue (many subscription businesses have inactive users that are still on a paid subscription but will likely churn). Find additional details at Nathan Barnwell.

Don’t hit the ground running without planning out and documenting the steps for your growth strategy. We recommend downloading this free Growth Strategy Template and working off the included section prompts to outline your intended process for growth in your organization. It’s great that you want to grow your business, but what exactly do you want to grow? Your business growth plan should hone in on specific areas of growth. Common focuses of strategic growth initiatives might include: Growth in employee headcount, Expansion of current office, retail, and/or warehouse space, Addition of new locations or branches of your business, Expansion into new regions, locations, cities, or countries, Addition of new products and/or services, Expanding purchase locations (i.e. selling in new stores or launching an online store), Growth in revenue and/or profit, Growth of customer base and/or customer acquisition rate.