3 builders who never spoke to each other

Refuse the growth hack that costs you the brand

Short term tactics are not a free bet: they consume the months you did not spend building something durable, they wear out a niche that has already been marketed at hard, and in a regulated market they end the company outright. The spend is the smallest part of the bill.

The method

1. 01

   Chasing quick wins is not a neutral bet. Beyond the wasted spend it costs you the months you did not spend building something durable, and it can damage the brand.

2. 02

   Growth tactics that pass unnoticed online will end you in a regulated industry. Grow now and handle the legal position later does not transfer.

3. 03

   Assume aggressive growth tactics exhaust a category's audience, so tactics that worked in a niche a few years ago will convert worse now.

What it returned

• $109.9M

  uBiome raised $109.9M and pushed revenue by billing clients' medical insurers repeatedly without their knowledge and pressing doctors to approve tests. The FBI raided its San Francisco offices and the company could raise no further money and found no buyer.

• 2017

  Hillary Weiss wrote in 2017 about her niche being marketed at on steroids, with a constant barrage of affiliate programmes, opt-in gifts, funnels, group invitations, ads, retargeting, webinars, challenges, masterclasses and daily email.

• The growth lead names short term growth hack tactics as the worst mistake at Habitify, citing lost money, lost time and brand damage.

Sources

• Do you need marketing tracking and automation?Justin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · "Growth marketing" burns out categories · undated
• Biggest Y Combinator Failed StartupsFailory · failory.com · uBiome · undated
• Habitify: From $0 in 6 months to 1M downloads and $21K/monthAlan Nguyen · failory.com · Which are your greatest disadvantages? What were your worst mistakes? · undated