Are You a Growth Fracker?

Fracking is a process that extracts more oil from the ground, with uncertain side effects, such as groundwater pollution.

I was reminded of this recently when considering what it means to be a growth hacker. To me, the ideal version of growth hacking is to grow a product by applying a holistic approach to growth: consider design, UX, position, etc.

But this isn’t the standard growth hacking.

Most self-proclaimed growth hackers instead do what I call “growth fracking”.

You’re a growth fracker if you do any of these:

• Show a popup to every web visitor to get their email address
• Send an email blast to thousands of people offering a discount on your product when they haven’t shown any interest
• Spend more time writing your headline than the actual content it delivers
• Obsess over your email subject line but not the body
• Obsess over the time your send your email but not over whether your recipient will want it
• Run a contest giving away an iPad when everyone knows you’ll pick an active prospect as the winner
• Create webpages that rank on Google but don’t actually provide anything valuable
• Force prospects to fill out a form when they aren’t looking to buy
• Produce “whitepapers” that exist only to promote your product
• Set an automated “nurture” campaign that spams your list with emails that technically comply with CAN-SPAM
• Develop product features to fit RFP check boxes rather than the needs of your customers
• Relentlessly retarget everyone who visits your website because its cheap
• Obsess over growing your database rather than growing your permission

Last June, The EPA stated that fracking is safe.

And maybe growth fracking is safe for your startup.

But if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of relentless retargeting, or downloaded a whitepaper with a useful title and useless content, or clicked on a search result that was garbage… you know what it feels like to be fracked.

Growing permission and trust is a slow, difficult process, and its tempting to take the shortcut, to frack what you have. But the best growth is sustainable.