Growth hacking is the experimental discipline of using non-obvious, leverage-driven tactics to drive rapid user or revenue growth, coined by Sean Ellis in 2010. It combines marketing, product, engineering, and data, often by exploiting existing platforms, distribution loops, or product mechanics rather than by spending on traditional advertising. It is the experimental, scrappy ancestor of modern growth marketing, and the term has been so over-claimed that the original meaning is nearly buried.
The canonical historical examples define what growth hacking actually was. Hotmail appended "PS: I love you. Get your free email at Hotmail" to every outgoing message in 1996 and went from zero to 12 million users in 18 months. Airbnb ...
Vertical analysis is the systematic study of a specific industry vertical's needs, dynamics, buying patterns, regulatory environment, competitive landscape, and unit economics. It's used to inform vertical-specific go-to-market strategy at companies that focus on (or are evaluating focus on) particular industry verticals (healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, education). The discipline is especially important at vertical SaaS companies and at horizontal SaaS companies evaluating vertical expansion or vertical-specific product investments. Vertical analysis is industry analysis applied to a specific industry slice rather than the whole economy.
The dimensions to analyze:
Vertical-specific needs:
The customer lifecycle is the staged model of a customer's relationship with a company from first awareness through purchase, retention, expansion, and advocacy or churn. The full stages span first awareness, evaluation, purchase, onboarding, ongoing use, expansion, and advocacy, used to organize marketing, sales, product, and customer success efforts around the right intervention at the right stage. It is the structural model that lifecycle marketing operates against and the conceptual loop that has been replacing the linear funnel in modern go-to-market thinking.
The canonical stages most companies adapt: awareness (prospect first encounters the category or brand), consideration / evaluation (active research, comparison...
Competitive analysis is the systematic study of competitors' positioning, products, pricing, customers, go-to-market motion, financials, and strategic moves. It covers direct competitors, indirect competitors, potential entrants, and substitutes, and is used to identify differentiation opportunities, anticipate competitive moves, inform pricing and positioning, and develop sales battlecards that help reps win competitive deals. The discipline is focusing on actionable insights rather than producing exhaustive documents nobody reads. It is one of the most-conducted strategic exercises and one of the most-often wasted.
The dimensions to analyze:
Positioning and messaging:
An exit interview is a structured conversation with a departing employee designed to capture honest feedback about their experience and reasons for leaving. It can also take the form of a written survey, and it surfaces observations about culture, management, and processes. It is typically conducted in the last week or two of employment when the employee has freedom to be honest (since they're already leaving). HR and leadership use the feedback to identify patterns across departures, improvement opportunities, and early warning signs of broader issues. Feedback quality varies significantly based on whether the departing employee believes their input will be used or just filed away. It is one of the operational disciplines th...
A SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) is a shell company that raises IPO capital to acquire a private company within 18 to 24 months. Also called a "blank-check company," the SPAC merges with its target so the target becomes publicly traded without going through a traditional IPO, or liquidates and returns capital to investors if no acquisition is completed. SPACs have existed for decades but exploded in 2020 to 2021 before collapsing sharply, and now occupy a smaller niche than at peak.
The mechanic, simplified: a SPAC sponsor (typically a well-known executive, investor, or operator) forms a shell company and IPOs it, raising capital from public investors who buy "units" (typically $10 each) consisting of one share and a fracti...
A fractional executive is an experienced executive who works part-time across multiple companies, providing senior leadership without the cost of a full-time hire. Sometimes called part-time CFO/CTO/CMO, fractional VP, or fractional leader. Engagements typically run 10-30 hours per week per client. The model is increasingly common for CFO, CTO, CMO, and VP-level roles where the work is genuinely part-time at certain company stages and where the company can't justify a full-time hire yet but needs senior-level expertise. It is a structural alternative to full-time executive hiring that fits specific situations well and other situations poorly.
The fractional model:
A strategic investor is an investor whose primary value to the company extends beyond financial capital. The value includes strategic relationships, distribution channels, technology integration, market access, talent, or industry expertise. Strategic investors are typically corporate venture arms (CVCs), large industry players, sovereign wealth funds, or family offices with specific industry focus. The tradeoff is potentially valuable strategic benefits in exchange for typically different relationship dynamics (information sharing concerns, potential competitive conflicts, slower decision-making) compared to traditional financial investors. Distinct from CVC specifically (which is a structural category) but overlapping; ...
A pricing model is the structural mechanism by which a company charges customers, distinct from pricing strategy and revenue model. It encompasses the unit of pricing (per-seat, per-API-call, per-transaction, per-product, flat-platform), the structure of tiers and packages, and the relationship between value delivered and value captured. The main modern options are per-seat (classic SaaS), usage-based (infrastructure SaaS), tiered (good/better/best), flat (single price), per-outcome (rare but value-aligned), and hybrid combinations. Pricing model choice has significant implications for unit economics, sales motion, and customer behavior.
The main pricing models:
Per-seat / per-user:
An online startup is a company that delivers its product or service entirely or primarily through the internet, with no required physical presence. The model encompasses SaaS, e-commerce, content and media businesses, online marketplaces, and digital service businesses, with no required physical retail location, manufacturing footprint, or in-person service component. It is distinguished from traditional startups by its ability to acquire customers, serve them, and bill them without ever meeting in person.
The four main online startup models each have distinct economics. SaaS (software as a service): customers subscribe to access cloud-hosted software, with recurring revenue and gross margins typically in the 70 to 85 percent...