At the risk of sounding like the bearer of bad news, “growth hacking” is a mirage that will crumble your business before your very eyes.
Investing in growth hacking is like spending your money, time, and resources chasing the wind when you should be putting in real work to help your business grow.
Growing a business the right way may be slow and hard, but it will be worth it in the long run. Just like a pregnant woman cannot give birth to an 90-year-old, no one can hack the process of sustainable business growth. There are rules to these things.
Remove the “hack” in “growth-hack” and just grow!
What exactly is growth hacking? Hacking means cutting corners or gaining unauthorised access. From this definition, growth hacking is more or less a scam. If you’re cutting corners and your access is unauthorised, then your growth will most likely a mirage.
Instead of growth-hacking your startup, do these:
#1 → Invest in solving an actual problem:
If you’ve not seen the show titled “Undercover Billionaire”, then you need to see it as soon as you can. This show will teach you great lessons on how to start and run a business successfully with limited resources.
With a cell phone, a bag, $100, a simple car, no credit cards, no contacts, no accomodation, and no internet access, the undercover billionaire goes on a quest to build a million dollar business in 90 days, in a town where no one can recognise him. Better still, it has to be a town where he knows no one.
There is so much any entrepreneur can learn from this show to help build a sustainable business from scratch. One of the first lessons is the need to create real value.
The first season of Undercover Billionaire featured Glenn Stearns. His first mission was to generate quick cash to cover basic expenses and generate capital to start his business.
Glenn asked himself this question; “what value can I offer to make money, even with limited resources at my disposal?”
After thinking hard, he decided to start a BBQ business seeing as it’s in hiigh demand. But to raise the capital for a standard BBQ business, he did some odd jobs. He…
- Sold scrap metals
- Flipped used items
- Did some handywork for wages
Side note: Where there is a will, there is a way! Go out of your way if you have to; do whatever it takes to grow. No hacking, no cutting corners, just grit and sheer hard work.
In record time, Glenn raised enough money to start his primary business and went ahead to build a successful business from that.
So, put on your thinking cap, figure out what value is lacking in your industry, then come up with a product or service to meet that pain point.
Do not hack your business growth when there is no real value to offer. That’s recipe for disaster.
#2 → Invest in underserved markets:
Napoleon Hill, the famous American writer who wrote “think and grow rich” once said…
“Your big opportunity may be right where you are now.”
More often than not, you don’t need to look too far to find an opportunity. If only you can just pause and look around you, you’ll realise that you migh be standing on a goldmine.
Do you know the story about Zynga and King?
These are mobile gaming companies that made history in th tech world, but not without valuable lessons.
Zynga, a one-time leader in social (facebook) gaming, had major hits like Farmville, among others. Issue was, this company totally depended on Facebook for traffic; which we will later be a grave mistake when Facebook decided to chang their algorithm.
This change in algorithm had Zynga shook, as expected. The problem was, Zynga did nothing about this change in algorithm!
Maybe they were over confident in their company or somthing, but whatever it was, they regretted it so much. Because, why didn’t Zynga adapt to the change in algorithm fast enough? Why didn’t they figure out other ways to serve their customers aside from Facebook? This is a clear case of over confidence (like I mentioned earlier) and customer negligence!
Customer negligence because, at this point, the Zynga customer base were being underserved. That was when King, another mobile gaming company, deccided to jump in and save the day.
And save the day they did!
So, what did King do differently from Zynga?
First, they focused on stand-alone gaming apps that can run on mobile devices without going through Facebook or any other platform.
Next, King mastered the free-to-play monetisation, and distributed their games on Facebook AND other platforms.
King also implemented a non-invasive social integration. This means their users can link the app to their social media platforms, which allows them to connect with other players, share updates, get feedbacks, or build a community around a game.
So, instead of growth-hacking your business, carry out an in-depth research to find out what value is missing in your industry and take advantage of that.
#3 → Research your competitors:
Do you know why Sun Tzu said we should keep our enemies closer than our friends? It’s because understanding your enemies (or competitors) gives us power.
How do you keep your competitors “closer”?
By researching them. Nope; it’s not stalking, it’s 100% legal, and it’s standard practice in business.
Let’s take a look at the case of Netflix vs Bluckbuster (yet again!).
First, Blockbuster. Here are some stats.
- More than 9000 walk-in stores worldwide
- Millions of loyal customers on a weekly basis
- Worth close to $6 billion
- Hired over 84,000 employees
Blockbuster was the in-thing at the time!
At the time when Blockbuster was all over the place, Netflix was somewhere around the corner watching and taking notes. Netflix may not be the best at the time, but they were innovative and willing to put in the work.
Just for comparison, in 2003
- Netflix was worth $300 million to $500 million
- Blockbuster was worth $5 billion
Again, Netflix wasn’t doing bad, but they were innovative and hard at work researching their biggest competitor – Blockbuster.
In addition to researching their biggest competitor, Netflix also leveraged on technology, which was just starting to boom at the time.
These were the changes they made to get ahead.
i) — DVD door-to-door delivery by mail:
With Blockbuster, you have to take a trip to one of their brick-and-mortar stores to hire a movie – nothing wrong in that. But what if you can have the movies right at your door steps? No trips, saves time and money, more convenience!
Cool, right?
Well, Netflix started delivered DVD by mail and people loved it!
ii) — Flat rate subscription:
When you hire a movie from Blockbuster and fail to return it on time, you’re charged a “late fee” which customers hated so much.
To deal with this painpoint, Netflix introduced a flat rate subscription. That’s a one time fee for a period of time which allows you to have unlimited access to DVDs. No late fees.
iii) — Streaming movies online:
Greater convinience!
People love anything that can make life easier for them, and streaming movies online right in the comfort of their own homes is not bad at all.
Plus, the use of internet was beginning to boom. Talk about perfect timing.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Netflix was able to grow (not growth-hack) their way into becoming the leading content creater ever at this age, worth about $417 billion (at the time of writing this, 2025).
Furthermore, Netflix has set ambitious goal to reach an estimate value of $1 trillion by 2030!
So, where is Blockbuster in all of these? Gone with the wind!
Also, did I mention that bluckbuster rejected an offer to buy Neflix for $50 million in the year 2000?
(Yeah; do with that whatever you will!)
CONCLUSION:
It is one thing to start a business, but it is another to run it successfully.
In addition to honing your skills set, you also need discretion to identify what industry best practices you should or should not implement.
I know it’s not easy; I’ve been there before, failed, mourned, mopped, learnt a few lessons, and now I know better.
Growth hacking, no matter how you see it, is not a good strategy for your business.
As far as business growth goes, you either grow your business for real (by putting in the work), or you grow too fast and fail (by growth hacking).
