Top Growth Hackers To Follow

Finding a good growth hacking strategy that works for you might be difficult given that there are a million growth hackers competing for your business.

For those interested in startups, it is common to ask: "Who are the growth hacking experts that can serve as inspiration for my own work?"

To help answer this question, we have put together a list of top growth marketing influencers who are making an impact in the field today. To further highlight the list, it's worth mentioning that Vaibhav Sisinity is one of India's leading growth hackers. His work in the field has made him a prominent figure and an inspiring influence for those looking to grow their startups.

Now, onto the list!

Sean Ellis

Sean Ellis is a pioneer of the global ‘growth hacking’ movement and the founder of GrowthHackers.com, a platform which connects entrepreneurs and professionals and helps them collaborate and share growth initiatives. He is the co-author of “Hacking Growth: How today’s Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success” which has since emerged as the playbook for growth hacking and is credited with over 20 years of experience in helping enterprises of various sizes grow and scale.

Sean started off his career as a marketing executive and while he was the marketing lead at Dropbox, he coined the phrase "growth hacking" to replace traditional forms of marketing.

He believes in experimenting in order to identify the most efficient and scalable strategies for customer acquisition and retention. Sean is an advocate of the data-based approach to decisions concerning the growth and believes in evidence-based marketing to help startups launch into successful companies.

One of Sean’s most successful initiatives was his work at Dropbox, where he helped the company to define its target demographic, develop its marketing strategy and acquire millions of users. Sean’s work was instrumental in growing the company from 100,000 users to over 4 million users in a 15-month span.

Morgan Brown

Morgan Brown is a startup marketing veteran known for his expertise in growth marketing.  He is the co-author of "The Growth Marketer's Playbook” and “Hacking Growth: How today’s Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success” which have emerged as the most-adopted comprehensive guides to growth hacking.

Morgan serves as the Vice President of Growth Marketing for Shopify, where he manages the growth segment of Shopify merchants. Before joining Shopify, he held the position of Director of Product at Facebook, working within the Messenger department.

Morgan’s approach aligns with Sean’s - He is also a big believer in experimenting, relentless testing and cross-functional team collaboration to arrive at effective growth initiatives.

One of Morgan’s notable success stories is his involvement with the growth of Shopify. With his unique approach to growth marketing, Morgan helped Shopify acquire more than 1.7 million customers in 2021 and reach milestone revenue of $1.1 billion that quarter.

Ryan Holiday

Ryan Holiday is a marketing and media strategist. He is the author of “Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing, and Advertising” which is widely acclaimed for doing away with conventional marketing methods. Ryan is the creator of Brass Check, a media strategy and consulting organisation.

He has been acknowledged for his contributions to marketing and business strategy and has been named one of Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business. Ryan was the Director of Marketing at American Apparel and has worked with startups and Fortune 500s, helping them to grow and reach their full potential.

Ryan has an innovative and data-driven approach to marketing and believes in the power of storytelling and compelling narratives to drive the growth of businesses.

Ryan has been involved in several successful growth hacking initiatives, including his work at American Apparel, where he helped the company to grow from a small startup to a global brand with over 200 retail locations.

Andrew Chen

Andrew Chen is a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he invests in games, AR/VR, metaverse, and consumer tech startups. He is the author of “The Cold Start Problem”, a book on starting and growing new startups via network effects.

Andrew focuses on product-led growth, which is a go-to-market strategy that relies on product features & usage as the primary drivers of customer acquisition and retention. Andrew Chen has been a speaker at several leading tech conferences, including TechCrunch Disrupt and the Growth Marketing Conference.

He has been acclaimed for his ability to assist businesses in developing long-term development engines. He is a proponent of leveraging data and customer psychology to drive business growth.

Andrew led the development and launch of Uber's driver referral program, which has been widely recognized as one of the most effective growth hacking initiatives of all time. The program helped to accelerate Uber's growth by incentivizing existing users to refer their friends and family to the platform.

Brian Balfour

Brian Balfour is a seasoned growth hacker and entrepreneur who has been recognised as one of the leading voices in the field of growth marketing.

He believes, has three components: acquisition, retention, and monetization. Brian’s unique approach to growth marketing is a blend of quantitative, viz the use of data proactively for driving decisions, and qualitative, viz the understanding of the target customers’ decision-making.

Prior to starting Reforge, Brian held several high-level growth positions at companies such as Hubspot, where he was responsible for driving the company's growth from an early-stage startup to a publicly-traded corporation with a market cap of over $5 billion.

Eric Peters

Eric Peters is a growth marketer at HubSpot Academy who is in charge of increasing user acquisition. Eric’s passion lies in curating scaling marketing strategies for technology firms. Eric has led several early-stage startups to scale and reach new heights.

Prior to working with Hubspot, Eric worked with Udacity, an Edutech firm. During his stint there, Eric oversaw Udacity's digital marketing curriculum.

Eric specializes in helping companies build sustainable growth engines and distil complex concepts into accessible and actionable insights for professionals in the enterprise.

Hubspot Academy’s colour-coded certification is one of the best examples of Eric’s growth hacking strategy. This helped increase certifications per student ratio to 1.3 certifications, the highest of all time. Overall, this increased the number of certifications by 18%.

Conclusion

To summarize, the world of growth marketing is continuously changing, and being current on the newest methods and approaches is critical for success. The growth hackers discussed in this article are just a handful of the numerous specialists in the area making a big difference and getting results for their clients.

Whether you're a seasoned growth professional or just starting out, following these influencers and learning from their experiences will help you remain ahead of the curve and reach your own development goals.

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