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07/31/14 | Uncategorized

What the Heck is Growth Hacking? A Few Experts Have the Scoop

What’s the deal with growth hacking? And how do you implement it? Meet the panelists at our upcoming “How To” conference who will give you the scoop.

By Betsy Mikel (Editor, Women 2.0)

Everyone’s talking about growth hacking these days — that mysterious and artistic science of quickly acquiring a bunch of new users get your startup, app or platform off the ground. While the concept might sound simple, it’s anything but.

“Is it marketing in disguise? Is it a buzz phrase used to increase salaries? Is it the future of internet products?” wonder Neil Patel and Bronson Taylor in their Definitive Guide to Growth Hacking.

To help demystify growth hacking and help you learn how to implement it in your own startup, we’ve put together a top-notch panel of folks to speak on the topic at our fall “How To” conference on September 30 and October 1. Don’t forget to grab your tickets — both 2-day and 1-day tickets are available (the Growth Hacking panel will take place on Day 1.)

Erin Turner, Product Manager at Google: Growth Hacking Panel Moderator

Erin TurnerAs the co-founder of the Growth Hackers Conference, Erin certainly knows a thing or two about the topic. She knows from firsthand experience that growth doesn’t happen simply by having a good product, and traditional marketing techniques are not effective at driving online growth. She’s founded and led two startups — Crave (which landed a highly coveted 500 Startup spot in 2011) and Gigabeat (which was acquired by Napster in 2001.)

The moderator of our Growth Hacking panel currently manages growth for YouTube’s music service. She was previously involved in building and growing Wildfire (now a division of Google), a social media platform that helps advertisers manage Facebook pages. Erin’s passions are commerce, games and social media. Follow her on Twitter at @erineturner.

Fun fact about Erin: As a producer at Electronic Arts, where she worked for eight years, Erin worked on James Bond games and The Sims.

Laura Klein, Founder at UsersKnow: Growth Hacking Panelist

Laura KleinGrowth hacking is all about speed. Laura Klein is all about building good online products fast.

She wrote the book on lean startup user experience methods — literally. Last Laura, she released her book UX for Lean Startups: Faster, Smarter User Experience Research and Design.

With over 15 years of experience as both a designer and software engineer, she understands all angles of agile development. On her blog UsersKnow, she offers tips and insight as to how to build better products faster with just enough research and design. Check out a couple of our favorite blog posts: The Most Important User You’re Not Talking To and How Bad Can I Make My Product?

Laura is also an instructor at TradeCraft, where she teaches eager startupers about user experience. Follow Laura on Twitter at @lauraklein, where she shares great articles and insight about building a successful startup.

Learn more about Laura: Check out this interview with UserTesting.com where Laura goes into detail about lean UX, patching problems instead of solving them and pain-driven design. “Most people don’t want a product that does 97 things,” she says. “They want the thing they want and want it as easy, fast and seamless as possible.”

Josh Elman, Partner at Greylock: Growth Hacking Panelist

Josh Elman of Greylock PartnersTwitter. Facebook. Zazzle. LinkedIn. RealPlayer. Josh Elman is a product guy who has been in the trenches growing the user base for all these companies. He led the growth team for Twitter and was a product manager on Facebook Connect. A few years ago, Josh switched things up and joined investment firm Greylock Partners, where he is now a partner.

You’ll also find him serving on the boards of Medium, Jelly and SmartThings.

Fun fact about Josh: Josh holds a BS in Symbolic Systems with a focus on Human Computer Interaction from Stanford University. Others who have the same degree include Marissa Mayer (CEO of Yahoo!), Mike Krieger (co-founder of Instagram) and Reid Hoffman (who started LinkedIn).

Ada Chen, VP, Product & Online Marketing at SurveyMonkey: Growth Hacking Panelist

Ada ChenAda joined SurveyMonkey in February 2014. Previously she co-founded Connected, a contact management startup which was acquired by LinkedIn in 2011.

At LinkedIn, she was responsible for the integration and re–launch of Connected as the new LinkedIn Contacts, and also led marketing for Growth and Premium Sales Subscriptions. Before this, she held a variety of product and marketing roles at Mochi Media (acquired by Shanda Games) and Microsoft. Ada holds a BS in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Sara Haider, Android Lead at Secret: Growth Hacking Panelist

Sara-Haider-150x150Sara is currently the Android lead at Secret, a new social network that lets you share anonymously with your friends. Previously, Sara spent over four years on Twitter’s engineering team, working on Twitter for Android and as the technical lead on Vine for Android. Sara is an advisor to Girls Who Code, a non-profit organization focused on inspiring young girls to pursue engineering fields, and she is a strong proponent of technical education for girls. She also advises startups in Silicon Valley, New York City, and Toronto. Sara holds a degree in Software Engineering and Cognitive Science from the University of Waterloo.

 

 

Want to learn more about growth hacking through the experience and insight of these amazing people? What are you waiting for? Grab your conference ticket right this very minute!

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