Deploy fast, low-cost experiments to discover scalable acquisition and retention tactics, learning through iteration rather than big bets.
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Growth hacking is a fast, experiment-driven approach to finding reliable ways to grow a business. Instead of committing big budgets to a single plan, you run many small, low-risk tests landing pages, referral nudges, onboarding tweaks to see what moves leads, revenue or retention. Keep the winners, drop the losers, and repeat. It is less about tricks and more about systematic experimentation.
Growth hacking matters because conventional marketing channels become increasingly expensive and competitive as more companies pursue them, whilst creative alternatives often remain underexploited and disproportionately effective. When LinkedIn ads targeting CFOs cost £15 per click, the company that discovers a viral growth loop or strategic integration can acquire customers at fraction of competitors' costs, gaining decisive advantage. This efficiency particularly benefits resource-constrained organisations early-stage companies, bootstrapped firms, challenger brands that cannot outspend established players but can out-innovate them. Beyond cost savings, growth hacking builds a culture of experimentation that accelerates learning velocity: teams running ten experiments monthly discover what resonates 10x faster than those pontificating endlessly about single big campaigns. Research on breakout growth companies reveals they frequently deployed creative, unconventional tactics during early scaling rather than simply executing standard playbooks better. The methodology also creates compounding advantages: each successful experiment generates insights applicable beyond that specific test, building institutional knowledge competitors cannot easily copy. However, growth hacking requires discipline the temptation is chasing clever tricks rather than sustainable systems. Organisations that succeed treat growth hacking as systematic hypothesis testing, not random tactic generation, documenting failures as rigorously as wins to prevent repeated mistakes.
Start with simple, resource-light tests that fit client-facing workloads.
Focus on product touch-points and user referrals.
Use on-site tweaks and post-purchase loops to drive repeat orders.
These straightforward hacks keep risk low while uncovering what truly accelerates growth for each business model. Test, measure, adopt what works, and move on to the next idea.
The cockpit that sits above your four growth engines. Individual teams can excel at their own metrics, but without orchestration they're musicians playing different songs. This is where everything comes together and where improvements in one engine amplify gains in another.
The wrong tools create friction. The right ones multiply your output without adding complexity. These are the tools I recommend for growth teams that move fast.
Small improvements multiply. A 10% gain across twelve metrics doesn't add up to 120% - it compounds to 3x growth. This is the mathematical engine behind systematic growth.
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Four decisions that shape everything else. When growth feels harder than it should, the problem is usually here. Get these right and execution becomes much easier.
Without rhythm, effort becomes scattered and progress invisible. A consistent operating cadence keeps your team aligned and your growth system continuously improving.
Gino Wickman
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A practical operating system for small teams. Install a cadence, set priorities and create accountability that sticks.
Assemble tools that manage pipeline, automate outreach, and track performance to help reps sell more efficiently and managers forecast accurately.
Deploy fast, low-cost experiments to discover scalable acquisition and retention tactics, learning through iteration rather than big bets.
Define how you're different from alternatives in a way that matters to customers to guide all messaging and ensure consistent market perception.
Analyse profit per customer to determine if your business model works at scale before investing heavily in growth and customer acquisition.
Block extended time for cognitively demanding tasks requiring sustained focus, maximising valuable output whilst minimising shallow distractions.
Measure the percentage of customers who stop paying to identify retention problems and calculate the true cost of growth in subscription businesses.
Calculate how much pipeline you need relative to quota to ensure you generate enough opportunities to hit revenue targets despite normal conversion rates.
Identify what you do better or differently that competitors can't easily copy to defend margins and win customers consistently over time.
Select metrics that reveal whether you're achieving strategic goals to track progress and identify problems before they become expensive to fix.
Focus resources on high-impact business mechanisms where small improvements generate disproportionate results across the entire customer journey.
Document your repeatable processes in clear, step-by-step instructions that ensure consistency, enable delegation, and capture institutional knowledge.
Assign credit to marketing touchpoints that influence conversions to understand which channels work together and deserve budget in multi-touch journeys.
Navigate competing priorities and secure buy-in by systematically understanding, influencing, and aligning internal decision-makers toward shared goals.
Prioritise tasks systematically by sorting them into urgent-important quadrants, focusing effort on high-impact activities.
Compare two versions of a page, email, or feature to determine which performs better using statistical methods that isolate the impact of specific changes.
Diagnose and break through stagnation by identifying which business mechanisms have reached capacity and require new approaches.
Capture specific user actions in your product or website to understand behaviour patterns and measure whether changes improve outcomes or create friction.
Enable tools to exchange data programmatically so you can build custom integrations and automate processes that vendor-built integrations don't support.
Calculate how many users you need in experiments to detect meaningful differences and avoid declaring winners prematurely based on insufficient data.
Store raw data from all business systems in one place to run analyses and build reports that combine information across marketing, sales, and product.