📰 The Guide To Design

I subscribed to several data analysis platforms and began vigorously searching for products, eventually discovering a niche product with a search popularity of over 3,000 but only 180 items online: "shoes for elderly people with swollen feet." I contacted the supplier, obtaining the shoes for $11 per pair, or $12.50 if they handled shipping. The leading seller on the platform priced them at $29. Observing the mild competition, and poor quality of the product images in the listings, I bought a few pairs of the shoes, had a designer create exquisite images, and listed them at the same price but included three extra pairs of comfortable socks as a bonus. Orders began trickling in a week later. As autumn progressed and winter approached, search popularity for the shoes climbed to over 7,000. In winter, many elderly people suffer from swollen feet due to varicose veins or poor circulation, prompting their children to buy these adjustable shoes as a sign of filial piety.

As the story goes, in 2007, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia couldn’t afford the rent on their San Francisco apartment, which is why they decided to transform their loft into a lodging space.

Yet instead of relying on Craiglist, they built their site, which they called Airbed & Breakfast, and leveraged Craigslist to drive users back to their website,

I wish I could tell you that this is how that idea turned into a multi-billion company, known under the name Airbnb.

Airbnb is a platform business model making money by charging guests a service fee between 5% and 15% of the reservation, while the commission from hosts is generally 3%. For instance, on a $100 booking per night set by a host, Airbnb might make as much as $15, split between host and guest fees. Airbnb didn’t grow into a multi-billion business from one day to the next with a single magic trick.

Instead, they had to undertake several experiments before seeing their listings grow.

More importantly, they had to master a process of continuous iteration that spanned across product features to marketing channels which eventually spurred an impressive growth track for the company.

Sean Ellis, one of the fathers of the discipline, called this process of continuous experimentation to achieve exponential growth: growth hacking.

Let me further define what’s not Growth Hacking so we can avoid falling into the trap of a few myths surrounding the discipline; appreciate its full potential.

Growth hacking is not a one-time marketing trick One of the biggest misconceptions around growth hacking is that is a trick, a tactic, or a technique that all of a sudden spurs incredible growth for an organization.

While some companies might have stumbled upon a trick that gave them short-term traction.

Growth hacking is, first of all, a process. It’s not a one-time thing or trick. It requires continuous analysis, ideation, prioritization, and experimentation.

The classic growth hacking process is more like a loop, which needs to be run over and over again.

Growth hacking is not a single-person endeavor (unless you run a solo business) Another common belief is that growth hacking is usually performed by this mythological figure, called the growth hacker.

In reality, in general, there is no such thing as a growth hacker.

There is, instead, a growth team led by a growth lead, which is in charge of coordinating the work of several people.

As we’ll see, this is usually the rule of thumb because growth hacking requires several disciplines that span from marketing, product, and engineering to run successful experiments.

The only exception might be if you’re running a solo business where in fact, you have a bunch of capabilities that go from marketing to development which indeed enable you to follow a sort of growth hacking process.

But if you’re building a startup or company made of a few people, growth hacking becomes a group process.

Growth hacking is not marketing without a budget A dangerous misconception is that growth hacking is marketing without a budget.

Indeed, growth hacking does require thinking outside the box to find marketing channels, product features, or data that enable us to have a massive ROI on our investment.

However, a growth hacking team usually comprises people with extensive expertise.

And it might require advanced tools for analysis and experimentation, which might be expensive.

What’s matters here, again, is not the budget itself but the mindset behind it.

A growth hacking team looks for an untapped opportunity.

It looks for marketing channels that can impact the business; in the long run, it is way less expensive than a marketing strategy spent without a growth hacking mindset.

However, in the short term, having competent growth hacking might be expensive but might result in an ROI that a conventional marketing team won’t be able to achieve.

Now that we clarified some of the myths, we can go to the definition of growth hacking.

The story behind Glitter AI is very personal:

❌ I REALLY suffered as CEO of my last startup.

A lot of came down to being a perfectionist + not knowing how to delegate.

I wanted to make sure things were done "right" so I just... did them myself 🤦‍♀️

Over time, I learned that this was a bad idea. The correct approach was to document ➡️ then delegate.

But creating documentation takes A LOT of time.

With Glitter AI, I hope to free up a ton of time for busy managers like me. I wish I had this years ago.

It is easier for a team to do a hard thing that really matters than to do an easy thing that doesn’t really matter; audacious ideas motivate people.

Don’t fight the business equivalent of the laws of physics.

Compounding exponentials are magic. In particular, you really want to build a business that gets a compounding advantage with scale.

Get back up and keep going.

If you’re like me and waste far too much time on Instagram, you’re well acquainted with the phrase “link in bio.” So why does seemingly everyone use a http://linktr.ee/ URL, and what is Linktree exactly?

What Is Linktree? Linktree is a tool for creating a personalized link that acts as a menu — in other words, a page that lists several other links of your choice. There’s a free plan and a paid plan. People typically put a Linktree link in their profile description on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok, and other social networks. Users click it to navigate to a homepage, shop, other accounts, and more.

With over 40 million users, Linktree is a hugely popular fixture on social media profiles. I’ve noticed it in the Instagram bios of everyone from small business owners to A-list celebrities. If you want your followers to navigate to your Patreon, business webpage, ecommerce page (e.g., Amazon, Etsy), podcast, or another social media platform, Linktree is perfect.

How Does Linktree Work? First, sign up for a Linktree account. Second, specify the links you want to share with your followers. Linktree creates your personal mini-website to share these links. Third, add some level of customization. Lastly, copy your custom link and paste it wherever you please.

Still confused? Hold tight. You’ll find out more as I walk you through setting up Linktree.

Should You Use Linktree for Marketing? If you have a social media presence for your brand, I recommend using Linktree as a digital marketing tool, whether you’re a content creator, ecommerce store owner, or working for a marketing agency.

Here are the features I appreciate the most when I use Linktree.

Free Linktree Features When you’re running a marketing campaign, you need to move quickly. Linktree lets you do that; as you’ll see soon, there are no roadblocks to setting up Linktree. Even a free account lets you easily add all your links to a customizable, branded Linktree page.

Sure, the free version doesn’t allow you to change the button and font styles or hide the Linktree logo. In my opinion, that doesn’t matter, especially for a freebie.

Let’s start by busting the myth that design is only about making things pretty. Given the nature of the medium we’re playing with, in digital product design most of our effort goes into figuring out the logic behind an interface: how things work behind the scenes, how users navigate through the experience, how the design system we are creating scales across various use cases and scenarios. A large part of our day is spent using the rational side of our brains and thinking through how to make sophisticated interactions work.

We also want our products to look beautiful and simple. We know aesthetics play an essential role in how people perceive an experience, and consequently, a brand. Clean visuals, well-defined typographic hierarchy, harmonic grids—those are some of the ingredients a designer can use to build a visually balanced product. In addition to that, with the right use of color, imagery, and motion, designers can create products that evoke different emotional responses from users.

This balancing act between function (usability) and form (aesthetics) is one of the most challenging and rewarding parts of being a digital designer. You will hear about this a lot. In some companies, those two mindsets are separated, and we end up seeing two different professionals looking at either side of this issue; while the UX Designer (or Interaction Designer) is more focused on function, the Visual Designer (or UI Designer, or Brand Designer) is more focused on form. In other companies we see one professional being responsible for both. The reality is that form and function can’t be separated. While some people might be more focused on one side of the spectrum, as a designer you need to understand and continue to evolve in both.