Sean Ellis
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.
Growth Skills
The 'Sean Ellis Test' identifies 'must-have' status as a leading indicator of product-market fit.
"The question is, how would you feel if you could no longer use this product? And I give them the choice, very disappointed, somewhat disappointed, or even not disappointed or not applicable, I've alre..."
Surveys provide immediate signal on PMF before long-term retention data is available.
"I would say it's a leading indicator of product market fit. The lightning indicator is, do they actually keep using it? So probably retention cohorts are more accurate, but the problem is... how long..."
Focusing on 'somewhat disappointed' users can lead to product dilution; instead, find the subset of them who value the same core benefit as your 'must-have' users.
"Just ignore the people who say they'd be somewhat disappointed. They're telling you it's a nice to have. If you start paying attention to what your somewhat disappointed users are telling you and then..."
Referral loops are most effective when they amplify existing organic word-of-mouth rather than trying to manufacture it.
"A referral program where we have incentives on both sides is the best way to go. ... it's a great accelerant when it's already working, but it can't fix it if people don't want to talk about your prod..."
Retention is primarily driven by successful initial activation rather than late-stage re-engagement tactics.
"It's usually much more function of onboarding to the right user experience than it is about the kind of the tactical things that people try to do to improve retention."
Engagement efforts should be concentrated on users who find the product essential to avoid building for the wrong audience.
"One of the things I've always said is just ignore the people who say they'd be somewhat disappointed. They're telling you it's a nice to have. They're as good as gone, so just ignore those guys."
Marketing Skills
Effective positioning acts as a filter to attract users who are most likely to find the product a 'must-have.'
"Step one was just reposition the product on antivirus. So that kind of creates a filter. So anyone who now is coming in to sign up for the product who doesn't care about antivirus is not going to conv..."
Product Management Skills
A North Star Metric should measure the aggregate delivery of the product's core value to users.
"Step two for me is then figure out a metric that essentially captures units of that value being delivered. And so when I think about a north star metric, that's what I'm thinking about is something th..."
Focusing on value delivery metrics is more effective for long-term growth than focusing directly on revenue metrics.
"I think monthly purchases is great because it maps to value that people are getting from Amazon... units of value from the customer perspective I think is more important than overall revenue. ... reve..."
The ICE framework (Impact, Confidence, Ease) provides a transparent, systematic way to prioritize experiments and maintain team alignment.
"In order to be able to effectively run a high velocity testing program, you need to be able to source ideas from across the company. And that's why I came up with ICE, that if you're having people sub..."
A two-step survey process (open-ended then multiple choice) helps quantify and contextualize the core value proposition.
"One of my favorite questions is... 'What is the primary benefit that you get?' And then I use that initially as an open-ended question to kind of crowdsource different benefits people are getting. But..."
Directly asking users about friction points in the funnel can reveal non-obvious psychological barriers to activation.
"Why don't we just ask them why they signed up and didn't download the software? ... we just asked, 'Hey, notice you haven't had a chance to use the product yet. It looked like it was coming from custo..."