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Sean Ellis. He\\u2019s the founder and CEO of GrowthHackers.com, he coined the term \\u201cgrowth hacking\\u201d in 2010 after using it to ignite growth for Dropbox, Eventbrite, LogMeIn and Lookout. He also founded and sold customer insights company Qualaroo, growing it to millions of dollars in recurring revenue.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? \\u2013 The Hard Thing About Hard Things
• What CEO do you follow? \\u2013 Peep Laja
• Favorite online tool? \\u2014 The Calm App
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?\\u2014 Yes
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? \\u2013 \\u201cI wished my 20-year old self knew things are going to be pretty good\\u201d

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Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:25 \\u2013 Nathan introduces Sean to the show
• 02:03 \\u2013 Sean speaks at The Capital Factory in Austin, Texas
  • 02:07 \\u2013 Sean\\u2019s talk was about viral coefficients and why it\\u2019s important to decrease the time of the original share to really drive growth
• 02:50 \\u2013 If you don\\u2019t have a lot value at the foundation of the growth, it\\u2019s hard to make your business sustainable
  • 02:56 \\u2013 Sean tries to understands the value of the product first, then goes backwards from there
• 03:16 \\u2013 Sean used the referral program for Dropbox
  • 03:30 \\u2013 Sean, together with the group, came up with the idea of giving away free storage for referrals
  • 03:45 \\u2013 Sean\\u2019s friend tested a double-sided referral program prior to Dropbox
  • 03:53 \\u2013 Sean\\u2019s friend is James Siminoff, founder of Ring and the previously the CEO of PhoneTag
• 04:45 \\u2013 Sean provides advice on viral coefficients
  • 04:55 \\u2013 In the case of DropBox\\u2014\\u201cReferrals were strong before the referral program went in place\\u201d
  • 05:12 \\u2013 Understand what the motivation is for people to do refer
  • 05:18 \\u2013 Think about every step in the process; for example, what\\u2019s the prompt that gets people to share?
  • 05:42 \\u2013 Optimize all the steps of the referral process
  • 05:47 \\u2013 The more you have qualitative and quantitative insights about what\\u2019s happening, you\\u2019re going to be more informed in the tests that you are running
• 06:41 \\u2013 Eventbrite didn\\u2019t have an incentive, but just a natural viral product in itself
  • 07:18 \\u2013 Eventbrite helps companies sell tickets
  • 07:30 \\u2013 Eventbrite doesn\\u2019t only offer a convenient experience but also good SEO, social integration, and other factors that will help you sell tickets
• 08:00 \\u2013 Sean worked for LogMeIn\\u2019s marketing for 5 years
  • 08:05 \\u2013 LogMeIn is now a $5B company
  • 08:07 \\u2013 \\u201cNatural word-of-mouth was huge with LogMeIn\\u201d
  • 08:10 \\u2013 By the time Sean left LogMeIn, 80% of the users were coming in through word-of-mouth
  • 08:15 \\u2013 LogMeIn was spending more than $1M monthly with a 3-month payback on acquiring customers
  • 08:21 \\u2013 \\u201cValue drives word-of-mouth\\u201d
  • 08:35 \\u2013 At first, the majority of LogMeIn\\u2019s users didn\\u2019t really use the product
  • 09:25 \\u2013 The CEO and whole team worked together to find out the problem with the customer experience
  • 09:55 \\u2013 LogMeIn has always been cash flow positive
• 10:13 \\u2013 Look up how Sean runs questionnaires in his Youtube videos and slideshows
• 10:31 \\u2013 Qualaroo is about customer insights
  • 10:45 \\u2013 Sean acquired Qualaroo in 2012
  • 10:49 \\u2013 Qualaroo was acquired from KissMetrics
  • 10:53 \\u2013 Qualaroo was a side business and Sean was an advisor for it
  • 11:08 \\u2013 Sean built Qualaroo to millions of dollars of recurring revenue and sold it last year
  • 11:45 \\u2013 Sean bought it for less than a million dollars
  • 12:00 \\u2013 The revenue of Qualaroo was less than a hundred thousand dollars
  • 12:25 \\u2013 Qualaroo was acquired by Xenon
  • 13:01 \\u2013 Jonathan Siegel owns Xenon
  • 13:14 \\u2013 Sean wanted to sell Qualaroo and wasn\\u2019t trying to get top dollar for it
• 13:57 \\u2013 Sean had a 7-figure advance on the book, so he\\u2019s not losing money
  • 14:09 \\u2013 Sean has signed with Crown Business
  • 14:29 \\u2013 Sean has self-published a book before
  • 14:49 \\u2013 Sean\\u2019s background and Growth Hackers allowed him to get a great deal with Crown Business
  • 15:00 \\u2013 Sean is the guy who came up with the term \\u201cgrowth hacking\\u201d
  • 15:09 \\u2013 There are already a lot of publishers who approached Sean to write a book about growth hacking
  • 15:22 \\u2013 Morgan Brown is Sean\\u2019s co-author
  • 15:47 \\u2013 Morgan and Sean hired an editor to write the proposal
  • 16:10 \\u2013 Sean\\u2019s agent is Lisa DiMona
  • 16:30 \\u2013 The process is getting an agent to invest in your book, they help you with the proposal and they pitch your book
• 17:21 \\u2013 Sean\\u2019s plan to make the book a successful one
  • 17:26 \\u2013 First is to gain momentum to get on the New York Times\\u2019 Bestseller List
  • 17:43 \\u2013 The weekly sales is what will determine whether you make the list
  • 18:05 \\u2013 \\u201cIf you get on the list, then it\\u2019s a lot easier to stay on the list\\u201d
• 18:32 \\u2013 People\\u2019s perception on growth is often a bit flawed
  • 18:45 \\u2013 Growth hacking is more about testing stuff and doubling down when something works
• 19:04 \\u2013 Sean has some copies of his book for his Microsoft presentation
  • 19:20 \\u2013 Sean also has some copies for different companies
  • 19:31 \\u2013 Sean offers ticket bundles for Growth Hackers Conference in May, in LA
  • 19:37 \\u2013 Growth University\\u2019s growth master training course has bundled with book sales
  • 19:43 \\u2013 Sean is running bundled ads, too
  • 19:51 \\u2013 Sean is getting sub $50 sales on their course with the book bundled
  • 20:51 \\u2013 Sean is currently at a ConversionXL conference
  • 21:05 \\u2013 Peep Laja was on Episode 620, and he is the founder of ConversionXL
• 21:37 \\u2013 Sean didn\\u2019t commit to buying any books
• 22:35 \\u2013 Why should people buy this book rather than the other growth hacking books?
  • 22:39 \\u2013 \\u201cRyan Holiday\\u2019s book was awesome to bring attention to growth hacking\\u201d
  • 22:47 \\u2013 There hasn\\u2019t really been a guide book to what do you do as a team, especially for bigger companies who want to replicate what Facebook or Uber has done
  • 23:12 \\u2013 Marketing isn\\u2019t that hard, but you need cultural change, cross-functional coordination, and collaboration
  • 23:31 \\u2013 Hacking Growth has the methods for what you need to drive growth at its foundation
  • 23:44 \\u2013 It is powerful and people need help
• 24:06 \\u2013 Crossing the Chasm provides observations regarding the growth process
  • 24:20 \\u2013 The main difference between this book and Sean\\u2019s is that it doesn\\u2019t tell you how to organize your team to exploit that growth situation
  • 24:32 \\u2013 \\u201cWe\\u2019re not just telling you the fundamentals of how growth works, we\\u2019re telling you how to run a growth process across a team...\\u201d
  • 25:02 \\u2013 \\u201cYou need to have a very integrated coordinated team and the best time to build it in your business is early, when the culture is malleable to do it\\u201d
• 27:20 \\u2013 The Famous Five

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3 Key Points:

1. Regarding viral coefficients, the more you have qualitative and quantitative insights about what\\u2019s happening in the referral and sharing process, the more informed your tests will be.
2. Growth hacking is more about testing stuff and doubling down when something works.
3. You NEED a very integrated, coordinated team\\u2014the best time to build this into your business is early on, when the culture is still malleable.

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Resources Mentioned:

• The Top Inbox \\u2013 The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
• Organifi \\u2013 The juice was Nathan\\u2019s life saver during his trip in Southeast Asia
• Klipfolio \\u2013 Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
• Acuity Scheduling \\u2013 Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Host Gator\\u2013 The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
• Audible\\u2013 Nathan uses Audible when he\\u2019s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
• Freshbooks \\u2013 Nathan doesn\\u2019t waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives