Who and What Is a Growth Hacker?

Who and What Is a Growth Hacker?

The term "growth hacker" was coined by Sean Ellis in 2010 to describe a new type of professional whose primary focus is growth. Unlike traditional marketers who may be responsible for brand, communications, and a broad range of activities, a growth hacker is singularly focused on finding scalable, repeatable ways to grow a business. Learn more about what growth hacking is as a methodology. But what does that actually mean in practice, and how does the growth hacker role differ from related positions?

The Growth Hacker Skill Set

A growth hacker sits at the intersection of marketing, product development, and data analysis. They need a blend of creative and analytical skills that allows them to generate experiment ideas, build or coordinate the implementation, and interpret the results. The best growth hackers are T-shaped: they have broad knowledge across multiple disciplines and deep expertise in one or two areas.

• Analytical thinking: The ability to design experiments with proper controls, interpret data accurately, distinguish correlation from causation, and draw actionable conclusions from results.
• Technical fluency: Enough understanding of engineering and product development to work effectively with technical teams and, in many cases, build prototypes, landing pages, and simple tools independently.
• Creative problem-solving: The capacity to see unconventional opportunities and design experiments that others would not think of. Growth hackers look at problems from multiple angles and are willing to try approaches that seem counterintuitive. An experiment-based digital strategy provides the framework for this approach.
• Customer empathy: A deep understanding of user behavior, motivations, pain points, and decision-making processes. This empathy informs experiment design and helps growth hackers predict which approaches are most likely to resonate.
• Execution speed: The ability to move from idea to implementation quickly. Growth hackers favor action over perfection and are comfortable launching experiments that are good enough rather than waiting until they are perfect.

What a Growth Hacker Does Day to Day

A typical week for a growth hacker involves reviewing experiment results from the previous week, analyzing user data to identify new opportunities and patterns, designing new experiments based on those insights, coordinating with engineering and design to implement tests, and presenting findings to stakeholders. It is a fast-paced, iterative role that requires comfort with ambiguity and a high tolerance for experiments that do not produce the expected results.

Growth hackers also spend significant time studying their users. They read customer support tickets, watch session recordings, analyze funnel data, and interview customers to understand the "why" behind the numbers. This qualitative understanding complements the quantitative data and often reveals opportunities that metrics alone cannot surface.

Growth Hacker vs. Traditional Marketer

The key difference between a growth hacker and a traditional marketer is scope and focus. A traditional marketer may be responsible for brand awareness, communications, events, and channel management. A growth hacker is focused entirely on measurable growth metrics. They are comfortable making product changes, not just marketing changes, to drive growth. They prioritize experiments over campaigns and metrics over brand perception.

This is not to say that one role is better than the other. Both are valuable, and many organizations need both. The distinction is in the primary orientation: growth hackers optimize for measurable growth, while traditional marketers optimize for broader brand and market objectives.

Growth Hacker vs. Growth Team

While a single growth hacker can drive significant results, the most impactful growth work happens within a cross-functional team. A growth team typically includes a growth lead, a data analyst, a designer, and one or more engineers. The growth hacker often serves as the strategic leader of this team, setting priorities, designing the experiment roadmap, and ensuring the team stays focused on the highest-impact opportunities.

Whether you hire a dedicated growth hacker or build a growth team depends on your company's size, stage, and resources. What matters most is that someone in your organization owns the growth function and has the mandate, skills, and resources to drive systematic experimentation.