We can see many job creations in connection with growth hacking: fashion effect or sustainable development?

Richard Russell. – “‘Growth hacking’ is a fashionable term, and like other fashions, the term will fade away. In the future, we will call it ‘marketing’ – because that is what it is.

What we call ‘growth hacking’ is new marketing disrupting traditional marketing.

Growth hackers aren’t constrained by organisational boundaries. They have new skills like data analysis, software development and product management. They use new tools like social media, big data and artificial intelligence. They gain market share faster and cheaper than traditional marketing. They are better at marketing.

Marketing will not go away, it will evolve.

Are all markets ‘disruptable’?

“It would be foolish to say they aren’t – one black swan would prove us wrong. That said, some industries and companies are more susceptible than others.

The key to disruption, and the best defence against it, is customer-obsessed innovation. It’s not enough to be customer-centric. You need to innovate so you can continue to attract and hold on to customers while others compete for them.

You can buy assets or intellectual property. You can duplicate processes and techniques. You can even reconfigure business models.

The one thing you can’t buy, duplicate or ‘reconfigure’ is customers.

You have to earn them – and the way to do that is by obsessing about solving their problems.

And that’s what great disruptors and sustained industry leaders do. If you’re not innovating to earn your customers business, someone else will. That is disruption.

A tip for ‘disrupting’ a typical market?

“Start from the customer and work backwards.

‘Customers are always beautifully, wonderfully dissatisfied, even when they report being happy and business is great. Even when they don’t yet know it, customers want something better, and your desire to delight customers will drive you to invent on their behalf.’ – Jeff Bezos

Use all the skills and tools available to understand customers.

Obsess over those customers and their problems.

Develop insights into what drives their behaviour.

Use these insights to come up with new ideas. Not just new marketing campaigns, but new products and features, new operational capabilities, and new business models.

Create innovations that matter to customers and will affect their buying behaviour.

Then test them thoroughly, cull them ruthlessly, and execute the best of them relentlessly.

Startups need to focus on learning about customers. This is hard for them as they lack customers to learn from. Following the Lean Startup method is a useful guide.

Established companies have plenty of customers. Their challenges are different: Capturing ideas from the people with customer insights; selecting the best ideas to invest in; and getting everyone to agree and build it. Amazon’s Working Backwards method will help reduce risk and cost, and generate better ideas.”