Typology of Growth Hacking Strategies Along the Growth Hacking Funnel

With the increasing significance of startups in recent times, practitioners and academicians have considered the growth hacking strategies by which these firms could obtain competitive performance gains and play an important role in the world economy. So far, studies have mostly focused on the technical dimensions of these companies, while the business promotions they require and the way they should be leveraged strategically have remained neglected. Thus, the current study attempts to present a qualitative study that could help explain the growth hacking strategies. We employed a multiple-case study approach in this paper and investigated the growth strategies of 13 Iranian startups via semi-structured interviews with their founders. The comparative analyses – with above 90% inter-rater reliability of the coders – concluded in the formation of five groups of growth hacking strategies, namely the growth hacking funnel of acquisition, activation, revenue, retention, and referral. This study developed a deeper understanding of the significance of growth hacking strategies and the mechanisms by which they leveraged towards strengthening the business value.