Top all-time · #1244
Sean Ellis
Personal blog · startup-marketing.combusinessstartups
Sean Ellis writes Startup Marketing Blog, a personal blog at startup-marketing.com about business and startups. Since 2008, 56 different Hacker News readers have linked it 70 times, most often “The Startup Pyramid”. The last post was in 2024, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (25) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Sean Ellis's startup-marketing.com blog for growth and marketing advice, including the 40% product-market-fit survey test, growth hacking and customer acquisition.
- Recommended for · 7 comments
- Commenters recommend it as a reading source, saying it has a lot of good material on customer acquisition and calling a presentation on network effects good.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 25 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Sean Ellis - Blog Please visit my latest writings at https://substack.com/@seanellis Hello, Sean Ellis here, author of Hacking Growth. You've found my old blog where most of the writing is from 2008 - 2012. Please check out my latest writing at https://substack.com/@seanellis. For a full archive of
Most-linked posts?
- /6 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2009-05-09
- The Startup Pyramid5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2009-07-28
- Where are all the Growth Hackers?5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2010-07-26
- Free Customer Development Help - Survey.io2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2009-05-19
- Optimization mistakes that kill startups2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-03-02
- Milestones to Startup Success2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2009-12-01
- When Should a Startup Start Charging? By Sean Ellis2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2009-09-02
- Keys to Success with Freemium2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-09-26
- Key Elements of a Massively Scalable Startup2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-05-20
- Bringing a Network Effect Business to Market2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-08-12
What Hacker News says?
To me, the cautionary warning (echoing Andrew Chen's[1]) for consumer startups was key: Beware too of the edge case where something spreads rapidly but the churn is high too, so that you have good net growth till you run through all the potential users, at which point it suddenly stops Sean Ellis[2] has a similar test for product market fit (the 40% rule ): I ask existing users of a product how they would feel if th…
Comment linking /the-startup-pyramid/
on “Startup = Growth”Submitted Your startup will be more successful if you have fun & forget about getting rich as a story · 69 points
HN discussionReminds me of the Sean Ellis 40% survey: http://www.startup-marketing.com/using-survey-io
Comment linking /using-survey-io
on “Before You Grow”Submitted Optimization mistakes that kill startups as a story · 12 points
HN discussionNice analogy. I think this is why Steve Blank talk so much about founders 'getting out of the building'. The first instinct of a highly intelligent tech nerd when faced with the challenges of a startup is to bury their head in code and not engage directly with the customer at all, i.e. focus solely on improving the product and not testing if there is a market for the product in the first place: http://startup-market…
Comment linking /the-startup-pyramid/
on “Your high IQ will kill your startup”Submitted Key Elements of a Massively Scalable Startup as a story · 11 points
HN discussionI have worked with and known adennis4 for 4 years and want to vouch for him. What he's leaving out is that he's incredibly motivated, hard working, and doesn't take no for an answer. He is one of the most outgoing and charismatic guys I know and I'd bet on him to succeed in his ventures through sheer force of will. He isn't a programmer, but he's trying to learn the ropes. He's still no slouch. He is the "everything…
Comment linking /where-are-all-the-growth-hackers/
on “Looking for a Technical CoFounder”Submitted Milestones to Startup Success as a story · 10 points
HN discussionHey, since you said you are a big fan of Eric Reis/Blank, I had to ask you if you are doing the customer development survey( http://survey.io )? More here: http://startup-marketing.com/free-customer-development-help-...
Comment linking /free-customer-development-help-surveyio/
on “What I've learned in 30 days since launch (and looking for a cofounder)”Submitted To Pay Or Not To Pay To Acquire Users? as a story · 9 points
HN discussionSean Ellis recently did a good presentation on this, highlighting whats different for network effect businesses: http://startup-marketing.com/bringing-a-network-effect-busin...
Comment linking /bringing-a-network-effect-business-to-market/
on “Eric Ries: “Don’t Be In A Rush To Get Big, Be In A Rush To Have A Great Product””Submitted Y Combinator Hatches Brilliant Entrepreneurs as a story · 7 points
HN discussionIf you are making money from get go, paid search is not bad if you can get to a positive ROI after a little bit of messing around. Your leverage with paid search will depend on your longterm earning per customer and your cost of customer acquisition among other factors. I would suggest you read Sean Ellis' blog. He talks a lot about customer acquisition: http://startup-marketing.com/
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Getting users ”Submitted Wasting Time Validating Assumptions? as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSean Ellis has said that a startup has achieved product/market fit when >40% of its visitors would be 'very disappointed' if the product were no longer available. http://startup-marketing.com/the-startup-pyramid/
Comment linking /the-startup-pyramid/
on “Mint founder on Silicon Valley”Submitted The Startup Pyramid as a story · 6 points
HN discussionOne of my favorite insights from Steve Blank is "you fail if you stay a startup." I strongly recommend watching his Startup Lessons Learned Conference presentation (link below). The differences between startups and established companies run deep and most entrepreneurs don't make the transition from the former to the latter. http://startup-marketing.com/steve-blanks-sll-keynote-its-a-...
Comment linking /steve-blanks-sll-keynote-its-a-must-watch/
on “Running a start-up is great, growing a business is boring”Submitted When Should a Startup Start Charging? By Sean Ellis as a story · 6 points
HN discussionI think another name for what you're looking for is Growth Hacker http://startup-marketing.com/where-are-all-the-growth-hacker... I spend a fair amount of my time doing this - but really another side of this is analytics and testing / experimentation systems. It isn't all about the campaigns. I should also mention that my current role wasn't the result of a post but just something everyone agreed I should do.
Comment linking /where-are-all-the-growth-hackers/
on “Where Are All The Internet Sales Guys? (CarWoo YC S09)”Submitted The Startup Pyramid - The Optimal Go-to-market Approach as a story · 6 points
HN discussionI am largely to blame for the recent tirade against “growth hacking.” I’ve let the term be bastardized and redefined a lot since my original blog post on it back in 2010 http://www.startup-marketing.com/where-are-all-the-growth-ha... . I wrote that blog post primarily for startups that had achieved product/market fit. The idea was not to replace marketing, but to create a category of marketing activities that have a…
Comment linking /where-are-all-the-growth-hackers/
on “Growth Hacking Is Bull”Submitted Are Marketers Now Required to be Engineers Too? as a story · 5 points
HN discussionfor this, no -- tim wanted some help with his charity effort, so we put something together quickly. otherwise, we use analytics, split testing and surveying all the time to drive business decisions, like what policies to set, what features to prioritize, content for landing pages/signup/referral flows etc. of course, we also listen to feedback and our own product intuition -- hard data is just one input. sean ellis…
Comment linking /
on “6 Months of free DropBox Pro”Submitted When Should a Startup Start Charging? as a story · 5 points
HN discussionI think things like options and any other legal is a very delicate stuffs and better be done with experts (lawyer, accountant etc). For resources, here are few that i have in the arsenal: Marketing: http://startup-marketing.com/ http://andrewchenblog.com/ Legal: http://www.thestartuplawyer.com/ General: http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/ http://onstartups.com/ You can ask any topic: http://discuss.joelonsoft…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Good books on the nuts and bolts of starting up”Submitted The Cult of “Great Product” as a story · 4 points
HN discussionAlso, see Sean's post on growth hackers here: http://startup-marketing.com/where-are-all-the-growth-hacker...
Comment linking /where-are-all-the-growth-hackers/
on “Ask HN: How early did you bring in a full-time marketer?”Submitted Why founders are best at startup marketing as a story · 4 points
HN discussionGood blogs that follow the 4 Steps Model are: Steve Blank (author of the book) - http://steveblank.com/ Eric Ries - http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/ - An advisee/investment of Steve Blank, started IMVU.com, Venture Advisor at Kleiner Perkins) His blog has become somewhat less useful lately though as he's been using it mostly to promote his "Lean Startup" classes. Sean Ellis - http://startup-marketing.com/…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: How do you learn about the business aspects of running a startup?”Submitted The Risks of Growth Hacking and How to Build Authentic Sustainable Growth as a story · 3 points
HN discussion
