Growth Hacking

Growth hacking is a philosophy and set of tactics focused on rapidly identifying and scaling user or customer acquisition strategies using creative, low-cost, data-driven experiments. The term was coined by Sean Ellis in 2010. Classic growth hacking examples: Dropbox's referral program (give storage for referrals), Airbnb's Craigslist integration (cross-post listings automatically), Hotmail's email footer link. Growth hackers run rapid A/B tests across acquisition channels, retention tactics, and product features to find scalable growth vectors. For VCs, evidence of organic, viral, or remarkably efficient growth is one of the most exciting signals — it suggests the company can scale without proportionally increasing CAC.