When Autopilot first launched, Chris Joseph thought of creative low-cost ways to reach their best audience. Tapping in the existing social media trend around politician stock trading, he created Nancy Pelosi tracker, which quickly went viral. Autopilot app grew to 53,000 downloads and $220K ARR without spending a single dollar on paid marketing.

This out-of-the-box and experimental approach demonstrates how growth hacking works. Identifying opportunities, leveraging existing trends, and using innovative marketing tactics drives rapid growth.

What Is Growth Hacking?

Growth hacking is a data-driven, experiment-focused approach to sales and marketing. It prioritizes low-cost strategies with the highest impact on revenue. Growth hacking focuses on finding efficient and scalable tactics to acquire users and drive revenue.

Tactics or “hacks” are not always new or even unconventional. Success often comes from small, creative modifications in current sales and marketing strategies.

Why Do Startups Need Growth Hacking?

According to Keevee.com, 85% of startups implement growth hacking strategies to scale their businesses. Growth hacking helps with common startup challenges:

✔️ Limited budgets → Growth hacking maximizes reach without high ad spend.

✔️ High competition → Creative strategies differentiate a startup from its competitors.

✔️ Fast-changing markets → Growth hacking culture supports fast adaptation to changes.

Short-Term Fix or Long-Term Strategy?

Growth hacking has been perceived as a short-term fix, not a stable long-term growth strategy. 

Growth hacking is much more than just finding quick growth opportunities. It is about creating a productive environment within the company and establishing processes for effective communication and access to data. 

The growth hacking process requires: 

• Cross-functional collaboration and effective communication between teams

• Data-driven decision-making to track and optimize performance.

• A growth-focused company culture that continuously experiments and evolves.

Though individual tactics may be short-lived, the underlying process of testing, iterating, and scaling successful strategies helps build long-term sustainable growth.

If you’re a startup founder or marketer, think creatively, test fearlessly, and use data to guide your next move.