Forget what you know about marketing for startups – growth hacking is actually a bad idea, according to BOOK A TIGER and Delivery Hero co-founder Claude Ritter.
At our upcoming SCALE17 conference, Claude will hit the stage to explain why growth hacking shouldn’t be the responsibility of any one person or marketing department. Instead, it should be built into your company’s DNA from day one.
And he should know: Claude co-founded the Berlin-based online booking platform for cleaners BOOK A TIGER as well as food delivery service Delivery Hero, which earlier this year had a successful IPO.
Find out more about Claude’s innovative marketing approach in our interview below.
You’ve said that growth hacking is the “new IT department”. How so?
My referring to the IT department was designed to reflect the thinking of many organizations that technology or “IT” are an independent unit instead of an enabler for the whole company. The same goes for growth hacking nowadays.
Many people consider growth hacking a crucial part of marketing for startups. Was there a particular experience that made you go against the grain?
Every employee is responsible for “growth hacks”, not just the person labeled growth hacker and not only the marketing department.
Tell us about how you structure your marketing teams at BOOK A TIGER. How do you ensure growth hacking is in the company’s DNA?
We encourage a growth hacking attitude in many aspects of the company. It is expected of everyone to contribute ideas to improve the business and we reward employees that actively go ahead and change things for the better.
What are the main elements of your marketing strategy at BOOK A TIGER? How do you measure your success?
BOOK A TIGER marketing is a mix of many channels, most of them online, some offline. The main element of our strategy is that we are operating heavily quantitatively, meaning that everything gets measured and optimized. Our tracking abilities are state of the art. Another pillar is automation, which allows us to do many things with a small team.
You were a co-founder of Delivery Hero, an angel investor through your company Pico Ventures and a partner at Cavalry Ventures. What is your ‘secret sauce’ for scaling a successful business?
There is no secret sauce. Find an idea in a good market and then it all comes down to team and hard work.
What can we expect from your talk at SCALE17? What do you hope the audience takes away from it?
Expect some tangible ideas for how you can instill a growth hacking mentality into your team.
Delivery Hero’s had a successful debut on the Frankfurt stock exchange in its IPO in June. How did it feel to watch these events unfold?
Well, it did and still does feel pretty crazy 😉
Catch Claude’s growth hacking how-not-to talk at SCALE17 at Radialsystem V in Berlin on Thursday, October 26. Head over to www.scale17.co for more.
Main image credit: © Andreas Lukoschek
