Sean Ellis, famously known for coining the term “growth hacking”, who has led growth at multiple unicorn-scale companies like Dropbox, Eventbrite, and LogMeIn, joins us to open Season 7 of the podcast.
Reflecting on more than 15 years since the term first spread, he shares how growth hacking has evolved from a startup tactic into a discipline fit for today’s market.
Sean unpacks the shift from distribution-first strategies to product-led, product-focused ones, covers staged feature exposure, and finding north stars as teams within larger organisations.
In this episode, an opportunity to revisit the roots of growth hacking today, Sean, the best-selling author of Hacking Growth and host of the Breakout Growth podcast, explores how this is an era where product quality and market fit drive growth. Each feature, according to Sean, should be seen as a mini-product, refined until it becomes indispensable for users.. 
Tune in to learn how to build & scale in the world transformed by AI, as this one is not an episode to miss.

Key Highlights
👉 Experimentation helps distinguish between activities that are merely correlated with success and those that directly drive it.
👉 Product-market fit remains the most important driver of traction; without it, distribution alone won’t sustain growth.
👉 Growth is not about doing everything; it’s about doing the right things and measuring their impact.
👉 Startups can compete with incumbents if they solve unmet needs, even if their distribution is initially limited.
👉 When product-market fit is strong and distribution is optimised, growth can become exponential.
👉 Treat new features like standalone products - test, validate, and refine before broad promotion.
👉 Feature adoption reveals deeper insights: low use can indicate complexity, unclear value, or a misalignment with user needs.
👉 A/B testing should be focused on optimising feature presentation and accessibility, not compensating for poor product fit.
👉 Viewing your product as a platform lets each feature enhance the core experience, increasing retention and revenue.
 
Topics /chapters

(00:00) Growth Systems: reducing Friction to find Product Market Fit - Intro
(01:15) Introducing Sean Ellis
(08:21) Do small or big companies capture the market quicker?
(14:37) Reshaping Growth Strategies for B2C to B2B
(19:49) Marketing to Product: The Evolving Focus of Growth
(27:14) Creating a continuous feedback loop
(29:49) Growth in Larger Corporations through Organisational Design
(35:31) Top-Down vs. Collaborative: Driving Coherence in Growth Systems
(38:35) Product Market Fit as Paramount
(43:40) Breadcrumbs and Suggestions

Remember that you can always find transcripts and key highlights of the episode on our website: https://www.boundaryless.io/podcast/ellis-sean/

Episode recorded on Sep 18, 2025

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at https://boundaryless.io/resources/podcast/

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Music
Music from Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: https://blss.io/Podcast-Music

#125 - Growth Systems: reducing Friction to find Product Market Fit - with Sean Ellis

How do we hack growth?! This week we discuss Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown. Full blog post at http://bit.ly/2lUdGNu 

Hello readers! I'm back with another book review. This week we are talking about the Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown. 
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Discussion Breakdown:
Point #1 ｜0:21
Point #2 ｜1:34
Summary｜2:37
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Buy Book Here: http://amzn.to/2nMFMgq
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Let's talk!
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Sean Ellis is the founder of growthhackers.com, a network and community of over 200'000 growth professionals looking to collaborate on growth experiments. Morgan Brown is co-authored this book and is the CEO of Inman news, a leading technology and real estate publication.

Point #1

Conversion Rate - Essentially, conversion rates are the percentage of people who take a desired action. Depending on your business model and goals the desired actions will differ. Perhaps you consider someone subscribing to your YouTube channel a conversion, or perhaps someone buying a product from your website is a conversion. Regardless, Ellis shares a simple formula that clarifies the underlying concept of a high conversion rate.

Point #2

Gamification - What’s gamification you ask? It’s the offering of rewards, perks, and/or benefits that users obtain based on their actions. According to Ellis and Brown, there are three factors that are important when trying to implement gamification.
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Music:

Mesmerize by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1500005
Artist: http://incompetech.com/

I Need to Start Writing Things Down by Chris Zabriskie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: http://chriszabriskie.com/darkglow/
Artist: http://chriszabriskie.com/

Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown ｜Book Review｜

'a compelling methodology... to increase market share quickly' -- Eric Ries, bestselling author of THE LEAN STARTUP

'a must-read for anyone in business' -- James Currier, managing partner, NFX Guild

'will teach you how to think like a marketer of tomorrow' -- Josh Elman, partner, Greylock Partners


Growth is now the first thing that investors, shareholders and market analysts look for in assessing and valuing companies.

HACKING GROWTH is a highly accessible, practical, method for growth that involves cross-functional teams and continuous testing and iteration. Hacking Growth does for marketshare growth what THE LEAN STARTUP does for product development and BUSINESS MODEL GENERATION does for strategy. HACKING GROWTH focuses on customers - how to attain them, retain them, engage them, and monetize them - rather than product.

Written by the method's pioneers, this book is a comprehensive toolkit or "bible" that any company in any industry can use to implement their own Growth Hacking strategy, from how to set up and run growth teams, to how to identify and test growth levers, and how to evaluate and act on the results. It is designed for any company or leader looking to break out of the ruts of traditional marketing and become more collaborative, less wasteful, and achieve more consistent, replicable, and data-driven results.


Read more at https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1112702/hacking-growth/#3oogW8FaoGhcGDwZ.99

Hacking Growth by Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown (Audiobook extract) Read by the authors

Weekly book reviews! I’m a Third Culture Kid, born in England, grew up in Switzerland and currently study in the USA. I'm an INFJ & want to empower others to reach their potential. I have my own blog www.noahsachs.net and share my thoughts on books on YouTube.

Penguin Books publishes blockbusting, prize-winning, celebrated, controversial, heart-warming, thought-provoking and inspiring books by a range of authors from Ali Smith to Zadie Smith, Jeremy Clarkson to Jeremy Paxman and Jamie Oliver to Oliver Goldsmith.

Boundaryless helps global customers with Business Strategy and Organization Design for the age of Ecosystems.
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In this space we host all our audio recordings, including the Boundaryless Conversations podcast, a show focused on exploring the future of large scale organising by leveraging on technology, network effects and shaping narratives. We explore how platforms can help us play with a world in turmoil, change, and transformation: a world that is at the same time more interconnected and interdependent than ever but also more conflictual and rivalrous. 

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