Growth Hacking: Say What!?

It is the most important attribute in business. It is one of the most painful experiences in business. As a professional we try to get it and measure it in job titles, salary brackets or social influence. As a society we advocate it every decade and the progress of it becomes hotly debated. There are many ways to measure growth, but the real question lies in how to be a growth. Is there such a thing as too much or not enough?

The question gets answered with a relevantly new term: Growth Hacking. Like all new ideas, there’s a multitude of what growth hacking actually means. The term itself was coined by entrepreneur adviser Sean Ellis in 2010 for his blog. Shortly after that post, other industry leaders lent their idea on what a growth hacker is. The simplest, core value that’s shared among the entrepreneurial elite gets summed up with one more: Innovation. To do something different and outside the traditional approach should not only be encouraged, but revered! Going outside of the norms to attain the growth of oneself or business is the one true way to stand out.

17 years ago, talk show host Alex Jones wanted to show of the studies he obtained, or to illustrate a point with physical actions. As a radio host, he had limitations to his words and his listener’s imagination. He decided to use the rise of the internet and streamed his show at the same time. Since launching his video stream, in the course of the last 15 years, other talk show hosts took the same model (such as Rush Limbaugh’s Ditto-cam). When Alex released his website Info Wars he posted all the documents on the website, encouraged comments and open forums. Now Info Wars has its own social networking platform and other talk show hosts have began to run the same format that he launched years before hand.

Alex hacked his growth by not being the best show in town, he hacked his growth by becoming the only alternative in town. Using the momentum of the internet, he launched his own small media empire. But he’s not the only one, thanks to the internet; alternative media has all but replaced traditional media. It’s all about not doing the same thing that everyone else is doing. If you are doing what everyone else is doing, you just became everyone else.

Growth Hacking is hard to define but easy to use. All you have to do is look at your corporate landscape and mostly do the exact opposite. A professor once told his class that there is no real reason to hold tradition, except fear of progress and change. To grow, you must change, adapt, and progress. And that’s the secret to advancing your career or business.

Written by: Wes Cambron