In Champ Life Series, this month we have Jonathan Aufray a.k.a The Growth Hacker, who is the co-founder and CEO at Growth Hackers, works with startups and Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) to bring them sustainable growth through proven inbound marketing and growth hacking strategies.
He has lived and worked in 7 countries, speaks 4 languages, and has done business with companies from 70+ countries. Jonathan loves discovering new cultures and meeting new people.
At Growth Hackers, he helps startups, SMBs, entrepreneurs, marketers, and organizations grow with digital marketing, growth hacking, lead generation, conversion rate optimization, and revenue growth.
Jonathan Aufray – The Adventurer
How did you get into the world of helping entrepreneurs grow? What made the transition from what you were doing earlier?
During my career, I had a lot of diverse experiences: waiter, bartender, data entry, forklift driver, tractor driver, cleaner, marketer, salesman, logistics specialist, business developer, growth hackers, and more.
How and why do I have so many different experiences? Because I always loved to try new things, grow, and be challenged. Thanks to these experiences, I developed skills such as high adaptability, conflict resolution, organization, growth mindset, and management.
In 2015, while I was helping the startup I was working in grow, many fellow “startuppers”, tech founders, and entrepreneurs saw the work I was doing and they were coming to me so I could help their businesses with growth. Therefore, it came a bit naturally and I was working as a consultant for many entrepreneurs.
To scale this, this is why I created Growth Hackers – a growth marketing agency helping businesses grow through conversion rate optimization, lead generation, digital marketing, and sales.
We see that traveling has been your passion. What are some of the notable changes that you’ve seen in business practices and work ethics/culture that would’ve inspired you?
Indeed, I love traveling and discovering new cultures. I am originally from France and I lived in the US, the UK, Ireland, Spain, Australia, and now Taiwan. I’ve traveled to many more countries and worked with businesses from 90+ countries.
I don’t stick to one culture. The goal is to learn from all the business practices and also adapt to them. For instance, you would not attend a business meeting in South Korea or Saudi Arabia. The business culture is different and it’s essential to adapt to them to show them respect.
Jonathan Aufray – CO-FOUNDER of Growth Hackers
Diving into what you do best, you are like the Guru of Growth hacking. Growth hacking isn’t just a buzzword, do you have your own definition of growth hacking?
Thanks for the kind words but I would definitely not call myself a growth hacking guru. I know my stuff though.
You’re right, I don’t believe growth hacking is just a buzzword. The term “growth hacking” has been coined by Sean Ellis around 10 years ago, it’s still here and in my opinion will stay with us for a long time.
There are a lot of definitions of growth hacking out there. Almost everyone has their own. So, I do have my own growth hacking definition as well.
Some people believe growth hacking is a buzzword for marketing. Some people think growth hacking is just cheap tactics to get millions of users. I don’t think so but I respect their opinions.
I believe growth hacking makes the connection between product development, marketing, and data.
The goal is to work on marketing to acquire customers and users. Then, after that, it’s crucial to gather data and feedback. Then, from this data, you want to improve your marketing channels but also improve your product.
The goal is to make your product more user-centric. So, the goal of growth hacking is to grow your marketing channels as well as grow your products.
Some people could tell you that’s what marketing is. If they’re lucky, this is what they’re experiencing. But, I worked in many companies in many countries and so often, the product department would make a product while the marketing department was supposed to market it but the communication and collaboration between those 2 departments were almost nonexistent.
How can marketers working with startups embrace the magic of growth hacking and heighten their growth?
First, growth hacking is not magic. This is a process. The goal of growth hacking isn’t just to work on acquisition channels but also on retention and revenue.
please enlighten our audience with the tools which they can use for the growth of startups?
You’re totally on point. Growth, implementation, execution, testing, and iteration are key to startups. There are so many marketing, automation, or growth hacking tools out there so it’s hard to only select a few.
The tools you will use really depend on your market, your audience, your product or service, your goals, and your budget. To find the tools that you need, try to find the repetitive tasks you do and how you could automate them.
Then, you will find the right tool for you.
Jonathan Aufray – The Risk Taker
Are there any certain characteristics that a person needs to possess in order to engage in this field?
To become a growth hacker, there are a few ways you could start. You could start by reading a few articles and books about growth hacking, digital marketing, web design, branding, business, startup growth, and more. My opinion though is that the best way of learning is by doing. Implementing and applying what you learn is the best way to grow.
Either you could join an early-stage startup and start applying what you learned by reading. You will do so many things and test so many techniques while working at that startup that you will learn so fast.
Another way would be to create a website about one of your passions. This way you will learn web design/development. Then, once the website is done, start creating content, drive traffic to it, build your community, and so on. Later on, you could even start monetizing your site. By doing it this way, you will learn about web design, entrepreneurship, and growth hacking.
You can find the skills, responsibilities you need to be a successful growth hacker here.
You need to understand that growth hacking is a fast-paced job where you keep testing new ideas and tools, you keep learning, and that the industry keeps changing with more automation tools coming up every day.
Jonathan Aufray – The Happy Mentor
Do you believe in the accelerated process of pinpointing leads using social technologies and automation? Do you use automation tools like Social Champ to keep your online presence fresh?
Social media marketing is important for almost any business out there, to build their brands and community. This is also important for people to build their personal brands.
For Growth Hackers or our clients, we create and curate a lot of content and we automate our content distribution with a tool like Social Champ – One of the best social media management tools out there!
Social Champ thanks Jonathan Aufray for taking the time out and communicating with our audience. We are truly honored and we’re sure our audience gained tons of information that can be beneficial for them!
