13 Best Growth Hacking Books That You Must Read

In 2010, Sean Ellis came with a unique concept to tackle the marketing problems in the digital age. He coined the term as ‘Growth Hacker.’ He defined a growth hacker as ‘a person whose true North is growth.’ Whereas, Aaron Ginn defined growth hacking on Tech Crunch as ‘a mindset of data, creativity, and curiosity.’

Chad Riddersen and Raymond Fong defined growth hacking in the book ‘Growth Hacking’ as ‘a highly resourceful and creative marketer who is singularly focused on the high leverage of growth.’

Growth Hacking

It is all about finding the most efficient way to increase the business with the help of useful tools. It is mostly utilized by startups to achieve rapid growth of business in the market. Startups usually face money and experience problem. Growth hackers approach marketing through innovation, capability and connectivity. No matter what company it is, the intention is to get growth in the business.

Experts believe that it is vital for online platforms when it comes to online marketing. They also say that one should learn and implement growth hacking to gain long-term benefits rather than achieving short-term growth.

Growth hackers use out of the box thinking for user testing during the product development stage. Growth hackers achieve user attainment through a 5 stage funnel that is acquisition, activation, retention, revenue and referral. It is believed that a true growth hacker tries to retain consumers. According to Bain researchers, by getting a minimum of 5% of consumer retention gives a possibility of profits of 25-95%.

Here are the top 13 Growth Hacking Books that will help new as well as established entrepreneurs to achieve the rapid growth in their business.

1. The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Business – by Eric Ries

The author pinpoints precisely on the tendency of entrepreneurs to create a ‘best’ product which ultimately results in a ‘cool’ product. The Lean Startup urges you to avoid short-lived success and take a sustainable approach which is directly proportionate to the needs of consumers. This book also tells a valuable lesson by providing the case study of Toyota and asking you to be ‘lean’ in the business.

2. Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products – by Nir Eyal and Ryan Hoover

The authors have tried to understand the behavioral psychology of a consumer. Hooked provides a ‘Hook Model’ which provides four steps to influence the psychological behavior of a consumer. This book is a Holy Grail for new startups as it provides Eyal’s years of practical experience and a how-to guidance to create attractive products and achieve success.

3. The Secret Sauce: Creating a Winning Culture – by Kevin Graham Ford and James P. Osterhaus

This book provides you with the ‘art of office culture.’ If you want to run a successful organization then you need to equip yourself with the leadership skills. This is where ‘The Secret Sauce’ guides you to handle an organization’s atmosphere and turn it into an exciting place where employees will give unparallel results for the organization.

4. Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade – by Robert Cialdini

Persuaders try different techniques than just saying to influence others. This is where Robert Cialdini’s book comes into the picture. The social psychologist has given an indispensable knowledge about the time frame before pitching anything to persuade others. To understand this technique, you need to read this book to gain the advantage over others and become a master persuader.

5. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion – by Robert Cialdini

Another thought-provoking book on growth hacking by Robert Cialdini. The author is interested to know why people are influenced and how persuasion happens? The six principles provided by the author are indeed useful for you to become an exceptional persuader. On the other hand, these principles will also teach how to defend against these persuasion techniques.

6. Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth – by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares

Authors point out that the startups and their employees do not give sufficient emphasis on attracting consumers. This book provides tried and tested methods utilized by various successful companies to get traction. This will give you a better comprehension about what is your business? And what channel is best for you? to get traction. Traction is very useful to understand and apply tested methods for startups.

7. 100 Days of Growth – by Sujan Patel and Rob Wormley

Sujan Patel and Rob Wormley provide an amazing book for startup founders to increase their business and achieve rapid growth. The interesting thing about this book is that it can be utilized in any business and the pages of this book are filled with systematic guidance which you can implement easily in your business.

8. Growth Engines: Case Studies of How Today’s Most Successful Startups Unlock Extraordinary Growth – by Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown

Do you want to know how Uber, Square, Snapchat, Evernote, Hubspot, Github and Yelp achieved rapid growth in their business? Then this is the best book to read. Sean Ellis and Morgan Brown provides useful case studies from these companies and unlock their secret to success.

9. Growth Hacker Marketing: A primer on the Future of PR, Marketing and Advertising – by Ryan Holiday

This book precisely points out that giant tech companies such as Gmail, Facebook, Airbnb, Evernote avoided the use of traditional marketing techniques like press releases, reputed PR companies and billboards. The author brings us into a new era of digital marketing where growth hacking plays an important role to get growth in the business.

10. The Growth Hacker’s Guide to the Galaxy: 100 Proven Growth Hacks for the Digital Marketer – by Mark Hayes and Jeff Goldenberg

Authors provide you with tools software and 100 growth hacks to get a rapid growth in the business. Moreover, this book will show you how to utilize content marketing? how to become a thought leader? In short, it is a practical based book to allow you to get growth in your business.

11. Rework – by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

This book differs from the traditional business books and provides you a simple and a better way to get success. The authors hammer on some of the assumption related to business practices and remind you to actually ‘work’ on the ground. After reading, you will come to know that ‘it’s the little thing in the business that makes a huge difference.’

12. Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators and Icons Accelerate Success – by Shan Snow

The author provides examples of successful people such as Alexander the Great, Michelle Phan from YouTube and Jimmy Fallon from Tonight Show and says that these people utilized lateral thinking to achieve success in their life. This book is not about using shortcuts to achieve growth rather it provides intelligent smart cuts to remove the unnecessary burdens from your shoulder.

13. Contagious: Why Things Catch On – by Jonah Berger

This book will definitely arouse your curiosity to know about the secret of success. The professor examines the successful case studies and finds out that word-of-mouth and social transmission play a vital role in the success of businesses. You will understand the six basic principles from this book and will know about the contagious phenomenon.

These are the 13 best growth hacking books you must read. Business is not easy but if you get the right direction, you can certainly achieve success in your venture.