Marketing sometimes means CHEATING - how WhatsApp, Reddit, Amazon, Paypal, Airbnb, and LinkedIn cheated on their way up
Marketing sometimes means CHEATING
Abusing loopholes in the systems for some might be controversial
For others, they are prime examples of resourcefulness - as long as you don't hurt anyone
Let's see how WhatsApp, Reddit, Amazon, Paypal, and Airbnb cheated on their way up:
1. WhatsApp
Koum and Acton took the advantage of an early App Store bug
The “What's New” list saw WhatsApp as a “new” app whenever the creators changed its name on AppStore
They kept changing it, and it gave them the first 1,000 users because WhatsApp stayed at the top of the “What's New” list until Apple fixed that bug.
2. Reddit
Steve and Alexis struggled with getting their first users
To solve that they created fake accounts and started faking traffic by posting links
Reddit had no subreddits until real users began coming in
The fake accounts got phased out over time
3. Amazon
Jeff came up with the name “Amazon” because website listings like Yahoo (which was THE INTERNET portal at the time) were organized alphabetically
At first, he thought about “Cadabra” but a name with “A” would pop up earlier on the list
Other than that, when the team needed to stock, they ordered books from other stores, like Baker & Taylor Jeff and his team, had one problem. The minimal number of books in one order was 10 It was too expensive
They found a workaround.
They always ordered the book they wanted + 9 copies of a book about lichens that was constantly out of stock.The store would send that particular book and a note saying sorry for not sending the 9 books about lichens
4. Paypal
When PayPal appeared on eBay, the team made bots
Their targeted eBay Power Sellers – the top 20k merchants on the platform
The bots were buying stuff there and insisted on paying via PayPal
eBay sellers got interested in the service because it looked like there was an increasing demand for it
This marketing stunt turned into a 33% market share after just 3 months!
5. Airbnb
Airbnb created a bot that looked for room-renting offers on Craigslist, and then sent them emails It asked them to include AirBed&Breakfast (MVP version of Airbnb) in their posts
When they got short on money, they released Obama O's and Cap'n McCain's cereals during the 2008 elections
They got featured on CNN
Within a week Obama O's & Cap’n McCain's sold $30k worth of cereals - almost 4 times what the Airbnb core business had made before this moment
6. LinkedIn
In 2004 LinkedIn created a new feature - aggressive contact importing with the use of email lists. The platform browsed through users’ contacts and sent invitations. The team has even built an Outlook plugin for that.
Networking got much easier.
Later on, LinkedIn exploited the feature to the maximum. When it got access to your email contacts list, it spammed everyone in it, multiple times. They got even sued for that.
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(btw, you can read the longer version here - MVPs of 42 billion-dollar businesses and how they got their first 1k customers)
Every marketing ploy I've seen from a successful startup has been unique to its own context. Innovation at its finest!
Now it has a name 'Growth Hacking'.
By the way, none of the above examples falls under cheating as such in my view.
Edit: Most people here on this forum might have done something similar earlier to get some traffic. So, people here may not find it as a serious offence or cheating but yes for general audience, it might hurt these things
Yep, for me as well
More like exploiting the loopholes
But you have no idea how many people recently commented on this, that it's immoral (I've send this post as a newsletter)
There are some people that consider cheating anything that has thinking outside the box
Yeah yeah, most people here on this forum might have done something similar earlier to get some traffic. So, people here may not find it as a serious offence or cheating but yes for general audience, it might hurt these things.
Totally agree, i think they are being smart and creative. There are plenty of self-made millionaires who have taken advantage of loopholes and became successful from it. But yes, to some extent, i believe it's wrong morally.
I've noticed that now we have more startups that over-deliver the social proof. What I mean is that their product is not even at the MVP stage but they're trying to show off numerous positive reviews which are clearly artificial. This practice hurts trust in the long term.
Ye, this always seems fake to me, and actually makes me believe them even less
Truth. "We have 100 five star reviews for a product that hasn't even launched yet."
😂
And cheating continues, even with smaller SaaS. Just look at "Social Proofs" from certain vendors. For some types of products, it is very easy to identify whether their claims are true.
I never realised Bots and automations could help in this way. And about that amazon hack - I had done something similiar with amazon itself. I wanted to ensure free delivery without having to spend the minimum cart value , over the years many hacks like "cancelling a item in the order" , "ordering a item with very few stocks" have worked for some time till amazon caught on.
Wow! this is going to change everything for us.
Guys, any suggestions for a product like us? we are targeting digital marketing content creator.
www.istorylive.com
It would we awesome if you guys can give us some ideas to get our initial growth.
A few, outside-the-box things you could do:
create a few ABSURD (something relevant to today, e.g. Elon Musks's Twitter moves, Avatar 2 plot, World cup final predictions, etc) istories and make tiktok/Reels/Shorts about it
create as many tiktok/reels/shorts engaging videos with your product as humanly possible
add deep fake voiceovers (eg Morgan Freeman) to your videos just for promo purposes (attach disclaimer that this voice doesn't work)
And maaaaaaany more, but if you focus just on these above and go all in, you will be fine
(edit, I'd also remove all the friction from your website to make people go through your funnel smoothly)
Thanks, I think our signup process is smooth enough. we have 100+ signups after our product hunt launch recently. (we came #4)
This is good info as we begin thinking about our marketing tactics.
Have a fantastic day!
this is all true! thanks for the awesome post!
You're welcome!
Thats not cheating!
It's call doing what it takes, they didn't do anything illegal.
That's business and if you can't handle that then you're in the wrong arena
The above content doesn't come under cheating
To find out more about how this all works, and why, and what the results are, you might like to read "Trust Me, I'm Lying" by Ryan Holiday.
I don't know how creating cereal boxes to raise money for your startup would be considered "cheating" haha.
Cheating sounds more like promising something to users and failing to deliver. Which none of these examples seem to fit into.
What do you think?
Ye, it's not
I just added it here, because it's sooo outside-the-box some people might call it "cheating the system"
"Marketing" as the gurus recommend is a total joke. Nothing works.
The only way to successfully market your business is to do the opposite, or something different than everyone else does. Then make that visible.
For example, when my "competitors" brag about how big their userbase has grown, I deleted 1/3rd of my member-base.
^ Imagine a school of fish swimming, all going the same direction, but one is going the other way. Which one stands out? That's real marketing.
Have you read This is Marketing by Seth Godin? That's a whopper on the subject and based on your fish analogy, I think you'll like it.
Ah yes, I'm a HUGE Seth fan. One of my favorite podcast episodes is with him, https://creatingabrand.com/the-secret-to-succeeding-in-your-creative-work-with-seth-godin/ --- Great reminder. Thanks for sharing that!
Yee dude. Cool product niche btw (PodPros).
Thanks so much, that means a ton!
I've created my entire platform based on this premise
I've collected over 150 viral marketing case studies (the largest library on this topic) showing just that ;)
I love it!!! You're a rockstar
I am not a great fan of fake it till you make it if its obvious. But i really like promising big things as long as you are able to deliver! But as @upenv already said – i dont think the named companies cheated. it was just clever marketing.
This is some pretty interesting hacks. But, I totally agree with Upenv calling it a "growth hacking." With all the competitors in the market, I can see why brands has big and unethical ideas to survive. After all, it's not cheating, but totally an effective strategy
I don't think these platforms are cheaters.
I think Facebook is better than Reddit. If you try to replace it, you have many users and social media interactions
This is not cheating per se (at least at the level of stealing you blindly), but I always laugh when these same companies expect you to justify a 6 months gap in your CV or something. Play fire with fire kids, dont outright lie, but "stretch the truth" in your job applications and interviews, these companies dont care at all about you.
I read your re-post and started to read the original piece. I think the Amazon book order hack and Airbnb using cereal as a billboard are quite clever. The anecdotes help to expand my thinking by showing me what's possible if I break the rules (not all of them but some of them), embrace my creativity instead of the status quo, and aggressively exploit opportunities. Thanks for the re-post. Cheers!
You're welcome!
As long you don't hurt anyone, you should do everything in your power to succeed
Going outside of the beaten path is highly appropriate ;)
Except spamming practices, doesnt sound like cheating to me.
yep, as long as you don't hurt anyone
I don't call it "cheating" but more "hacking"
Or resourcefulness
This is a great and interesting reading. We think that all is a beautiful place, following the normal thing to do, but at the end we need to resource to our own medium to reach the goal.
Hey there!
Have you ever heard of social listening? It basically listens to the internet. We use that internet chatter to create "lookalike audiences" that are more likely to be interested in your brand and ultimately lead to more growth and subscriptions.
If that sounds cool, check it out :D
https://hypercrowd.carrd.co
I like this. I feel like I've been mostly talking to bots to do stuff for me because I don't have a team. Just a couple of rogue developers trying to get something off the ground. Kind of inspiring.
Gotta do what you gotta do. Nowadays new founders and sellers are using tools like "SolidInbox" to get their customers on Twitter. You know the drill - let's say awesome! p.s
Thanks for sharing. :)
All large companies have their mistakes, thanks for sharing!
Thank you, For sharing this valuable info
Marketing never can mean cheating, it's more about who is doing it and how they are doing it. Just because some companies tend to make use of smart approaches doesn't make the concept of marketing bad. In fact, it will be more about that company's culture. We should rather call it bad marketing.
Unbelievable what all these big companies did and are still doing meanwhile today's founders are even afraid of early stage marketing or pre selling.
When you provide false information to your customers in order to trick them into joining your service or buying your product, that's cheating. Calling it "Growth Hacking" is simply a way of pretending that it's something else. Which is more cheating. I realize this contrarian view will make me unpopular here, but I'd rather maintain integrity, which, were it not for all of the cheaters, would still mean something to people.
In the long run, integrity is what counts in life. If you amass a fortune, but did it by defrauding your customers, all you have to show for yourself is that you are good at cheating people. In the end that's worthless, regardless of how much money you stacked up along the way. And when everyone does it then the entire society suffers because trust is dependent on integrity, and without trust no society can last. To verify this, look out your window.
It's an interesting topic and a good insight for Growth Hacking. Thanks for sharing!
Interesting post. Had no idea so many well known companies were gaming the system!
Love this! Very interesting backstories for each business
Always be hacking/growing
to be honest this post is responsible for introducing Reddit to me :)
I guess it is not cheating per see. Just smartness with luck.
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