The original growth hacker reveals his secrets | Sean Ellis (author of “Hacking Growth”)

Sean Ellis is one of the earliest and most influential thinkers and operators in growth. He coined the term “growth hacking,” invented the ICE prioritization framework, was one of the earliest people to use freemium as a growth lever, and, most famously, developed the Sean Ellis Test for product-market fit (which a large percentage of founders use today to track if they’ve found PMF). Over the course of his career, Sean was head of growth at Dropbox and Eventbrite; helped companies like Microsoft and Nubank refine their growth strategy; was on the founding team of LogMeIn, which sold for over $4 billion; and is the author of one of the most popular growth books of all time, Hacking Growth, which has sold over 750,000 copies. In our conversation, he shares:• The proper use of the Sean Ellis Test for measuring product-market fit• How to increase your activation and retention rates• How to select the right North Star metric for your business• Case studies from his work growing Dropbox and other products• How growth strategy has changed over the past decade• How AI is impacting growth efforts• Much more—Brought to you by:• Gamma—A new way to present, powered by AI• CommandBar—AI-powered user assistance for modern products and impatient users• Merge—A single API to add hundreds of integrations into your app—Find the transcript and show notes at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-original-growth-hacker-sean-ellis—Where to find Sean Ellis:• X: https://x.com/seanellis• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanellis/• Website: https://www.seanellis.me/• Substack: https://substack.com/@seanellis—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Sean’s background(02:18) The Sean Ellis test explained(06:28) The 40% rule(08:06) Case study: improving product-market fit(12:34) Understanding and leveraging customer feedback(16:50) Challeng