The Term That Made Marketing Cool Again

When Sean Ellis coined "growth hacking" in 2010, he accidentally created the perfect marketing term for people who hate marketing. Suddenly, it wasn't about "synergistic brand awareness" or "omnichannel customer journeys." It was about growth. It was about hacking. It sounded technical, data-driven, and honest.

But here's the uncomfortable truth: growth hacking is just marketing with better PR.

Why Founders Love the Term (And That's Okay)

Growth hacking resonates with technical founders because it:

• Focuses on measurable outcomes instead of fluffy brand metrics
• Emphasizes experimentation over "creative campaigns"
• Uses technical language that doesn't make you feel dirty
• Prioritizes product-led growth over traditional advertising

These aren't bad things. In fact, they're exactly what marketing should be. The problem isn't growth hacking itself, it's that we needed to rebrand marketing to make it palatable.

What Actually Works (Call It Whatever You Want)

Whether you call it growth hacking, product marketing, or just "getting users," here's what actually moves the needle:

1. Product-Market Fit First

No amount of clever growth tactics will save a product people don't want. Focus on building something people actually need before worrying about how to scale it.

2. Understand Your Numbers

Know your customer acquisition cost (CAC), lifetime value (LTV), and conversion rates at every stage. If you can't measure it, you can't improve it.

3. Build Referrals Into the Product

The best growth comes from making your product inherently shareable. Dropbox didn't grow because of ads, it grew because sharing files required sharing Dropbox.

4. Experiment Relentlessly

Run small tests constantly. Most will fail, but the ones that work will compound. This is where the "hacking" part actually matters.

The Real Problem With Marketing

The reason we needed to invent "growth hacking" is that traditional marketing has become synonymous with manipulation, interruption, and dishonesty. We've all seen the:

• Fake urgency timers
• "Limited time" offers that run indefinitely
• Email sequences designed to wear you down
• Social proof that's completely fabricated

Growth hacking promised something different: marketing based on product value rather than psychological tricks.

So What Should You Call It?

Honestly? It doesn't matter. Call it growth hacking if it makes you feel better about doing marketing. Call it product marketing. Call it user acquisition. Call it Tuesday.

What matters is the approach:

• Data-driven rather than opinion-based
• Product-focused rather than promotion-heavy
• Honest rather than manipulative
• Experimental rather than set-and-forget

The Bottom Line

Growth hacking isn't a replacement for marketing, it's what marketing should have been all along. It's marketing that respects your audience's intelligence and focuses on creating real value.

So embrace the term if it helps you sleep at night. Just remember: whether you're growth hacking or marketing, the fundamentals remain the same. Build something people want, make it easy to find and use, and give people a reason to tell their friends about it.

Everything else is just semantics.