I’m unbelievably clouded and need to take a break from my screen.
This might not be my most eloquent email—especially juxtaposed to yesterday’s—but I’m going to deliver an idea here and hope you’ll forgive the (likely) shitty presentation.
Growth Hacking isn’t a thing (anymore).
People used to say Tinder was for hookups, but as the user base has grown so too have the diversity of their wants and needs. The same can be said of Growth Hacking. The more people who use the term, the more fractured it’s original meaning becomes.
Five hours ago—frustrated by my own procrastination—I spent five minutes writing a short recap of this series and posted it to a Facebook group dubbed ‘Cult of Copy‘. There’s a palatable sense of community amongst the group’s 17K (semi-curated) members. While I’ve posted there in the past, it’s always been abundantly clear that they value the content that’s data focused, bullshit free, and wrapped in profane snark.
- 77 likes
- 58 comments
- 18 friend requests
- 6 livechat conversations
- 2 appointments scheduled
To summarize: I spent 5 minutes recapping the last 72 days in 260 words and was then bombarded with congratulatory praise and highly intelligent questions from peers. I had conversations, did my best to provide more value, made a few friends that (history has shown) will help to accelerate the spread of content, and will likely drive more than a few referrals (which then wins brownie points and converts to various forms of leverage).
Growth Hustling Formula = getting the fuck to work.
I’ve occasionally gotten the extremely flattering compliment that “I found your website three hours ago and just finished reading all of your content before emailing you here.” While the idea to upload the emails as blog posts came somewhere around day thirty, the structure was very intentionally designed to suck people in. Let’s call it “The Rabbit Hole Strategy.”
The interconnectedness (referencing and linking other emails) isn’t by accident, it’s by design. What was most notable to me was watching the analytics as this (relatively small) surge was happening. I only linked ‘Day 000‘ but people were reading to ‘Day 014‘.
A call-to-action is a conclusion, when you don’t have one… people keep searching.
It’s the content marketing equivalent of giving blue balls and PrimeMind does it too. The singular goal is to foster meaningful consumption, but people still crave a discernible end (i.e. being asked to purchase or take equivalent action). I always loved content that tipped me into an abyss, and was beyond happy to see that I’d been able to create one myself.
Think of your life, it’s a series of stories and they’re all interconnected together. The more you tell, the more someone gets to know you, and the more you can reference in future conversations. The tightest connections are formed when you share a piece of yourself.
Let’s get to know each other better. Tell me a story.