Startup Growth Engines

“[CHI] is a measure of the degree to which one of our customers is practicing inbound marketing in a way that is likely to lead to long-term success. Our customers with the highest CHI scores get the biggest lift in traffic and leads every month. These customers also give us the highest Net Promoter scores and have the highest renewal rates.” [20]

In fact many jettisoned their Vice Presidents of Marketing in favor of cross-functional growth teams that included individuals from engineering, product, sales, and marketing.

Critchfield cites this as an example of using emotion as data. Although there were no logical indicators that the video would be a success (Zach’s story had already been shared via Fox News, People, and Upworthy with limited reach), the emotional data argued to the contrary.

the most successful companies today are ones who are able to effectively scale their user base, revenue and ultimately value in a way that is fundamentally different from their competitors and that creates outsized audiences and value in the process.

Growth hacking is not anti-marketing, it is the evolution of marketing, it is pro-growth.

“It’s Easier to Focus on a Strength than Improve a Weakness.”

Consultants work with customers to get them the highest CHI scores possible, which drives traffic and leads for customers and results in higher customer satisfaction for HubSpot.

“It seems like it’s about getting the right piece of content published within the right moment.”

So Evernote’s growth strategy, at its most basic level, is making their product (and now products) as simple, beautiful, and useful as possible, and then letting the other stuff work itself out.