Growth hacking as a methodologyfor user retention in the entrepreneurial venture: A case study

Sammanfattning: Even though growth hacking is a new concept, it has become a buzz-word among entrepreneurs and start-ups. Various startups that have achieved extensive growth, such as Dropbox, Uber, Airbnb, have been sharing their success stories. However, to date, the focus of this concept was more on the practicalities instead of the theoretical research. With so many start-ups that fail to grow, it is important to research growth methodologies, that can help young entrepreneurs to successfully establish themselves. This paper studies growth hacking concept, by trying to understand how the growth hacking strategy works and how it could be used to retain a user-base in a start-up. With the help of an extensive literature review, interviews with the entrepreneurs and a case study analysis, this research provides (1) insights into the theory of growth hacking and retention marketing,(2) examples of its practices, and (3) an implementation of suggestions made based on the findings. The results of this study indicate that growth hacking is a broad concept and has numerous interpretations. Growth hacking framework has been applied at the early stages of start-ups, however, the growth hacking concept has not been defined as well as it has not been determined whether it is a relevant method to improve user retention. In this study, it was discovered that growth hacking practices can improve to set up theuser retention strategy. However, growth hacking strategies must be tailored and adapted to the entrepreneurial venture’s business model.