I can't wait until the term "growth hacker" goes out of style.
HN is so averse to anything related to marketing, conversion optimization, or anything else similar to such practices that a whole new title has emerged simply so no one has to grimace when saying they need to hire a "marketer".
Call a spade a spade: growth hacker == marketer. Yes, they use data to lead their decision making process and are more empirical than traditional mad men style marketers, but that by no means warrants a whole new job title.
Growth hackers are just good marketers using the data and tools available to them.
Actually they are not just "marketing people". They top growth hackers are often full-stack developers (Jesse Farmer, Matt Humphrey, Jim Young, Mike Greenfield, Dan Martell, Danielle Morrill, Ivan Kirgin etc).
This is not inbound marketing but building product that, at its core, is focused on growth. LinkedIn, Zynga, Quora, Twitter, and Facebook all have growth teams.
Do you know Dropbox's brilliant referral strategy? That was the brainchild of Sean Ellis (growth hacker), Ivan Kirigin (growth hacker), and Dropbox leadership.
The goal of a marketer is to grow a customer base. That's what these growth hackers are doing, they're just doing it in a more technically advanced way via data confirmation and split testing.
Referral strategies have been around for decades, the Dropbox guys didn't hack anything they just applied an old principle to a new technology.
HN is so averse to anything related to marketing, conversion optimization, or anything else similar to such practices that a whole new title has emerged simply so no one has to grimace when saying they need to hire a "marketer".
Call a spade a spade: growth hacker == marketer. Yes, they use data to lead their decision making process and are more empirical than traditional mad men style marketers, but that by no means warrants a whole new job title.
Growth hackers are just good marketers using the data and tools available to them.