Growth Hackers

The phrase “growth hacking” was first used in 2010 by tech entrepreneurs Sean Ellis, Patrick Vlaskovits, and Hiten Shah. They came up with the phrase during a discussion about the differences between traditional marketing methods and the innovative and short-term strategies that start-ups with little money for marketing were using to attract and retain customers. The latter methods focused on using data analytics and other tools to drive growth, and Ellis, Vlaskovits, and Shah thought that “growth hacking” was apropos to describe this process. In a 2010 blog post, Ellis wrote: “A growth hacker is a person whose true north is growth. Everything they do is scrutinized by its potential impact on scalable growth.”

An early example of growth hacking was the email service provider Hotmail’s inclusion of the phrase “PS I Love You” with a link at the end of the email to encourage others to sign up for the free online mail service. Another example involves data storage company Dropbox, which offered more storage to users who referred their friends. These strategies were very successful in expanding the customer bases of these businesses. As a result, traditional companies, as well as large tech companies such as TikTok, X, Facebook, YouTube, Google, Uber, and Shopify, now have their own growth marketing teams.