GrowthMarketing
Hacking Growth
Sean Ellis & Morgan Brown
2017
Summary
Sean Ellis coined the term 'growth hacker' and in this book he codifies the system behind it. Growth hacking is not a bag of tricks — it is a rigorous, cross-functional process of rapid experimentation across acquisition, activation, retention, and revenue. The book explains how to set up a growth team, establish a tempo of regular tests, analyze data to find growth levers, and systematically move from one growth bottleneck to the next. Companies like Airbnb, Uber, and LinkedIn used these methods to build massive user bases.
Key Takeaways
- 1Find product-market fit before scaling acquisition — growth hacking doesn't fix a weak product
- 2The growth team owns the full funnel: acquisition, activation, retention, and revenue (AARRR)
- 3The North Star Metric captures the core value your product delivers — align every team to it
- 4Run a high-tempo testing process: prioritize, test, analyze, and repeat on a weekly cadence
- 5Activation is the most neglected and highest-leverage part of the funnel for most products
- 6Retention is the foundation of growth — a leaky bucket cannot be filled by more acquisition