60 business growth hacks that real companies used to get customers, keep them and grow, from scrappy founder moves to pricing and partnership plays. Each one says what they did, why it worked, how much effort and money it takes, and links to the source so you can check it yourself. Last updated 1 November 2026.
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Category
Showing 20 of 60 matching hacks (60 in total)
SEOSEOAdded 1 November 2026
Zapier
Build a page for every pair of tools your product connects
Zapier connects thousands of apps, so it rolls out a page for every app it supports and for every combination of apps. Search something like google sheets integrations and you'll likely land on Zapier's page showing exactly what you can build. The pages are generated from their database, not written one by one.
Why it works
Each page catches someone with an exact problem at the exact moment they're searching for it. Zapier's own blog calls its app directory one of the best programmatic SEO strategies out there.
Effort
High
Cost
Low
Best for
Integration, marketplace and data-rich products with lots of long tail combinations
Enroll every buyer in your loyalty program automatically
Cricut launched Cricut Rewards in the US and Canada on October 27, 2026, with no signup step at all. Buy something while signed in and you start earning a point per dollar, 100 points becomes $5, and available rewards show up right in your cart.
Why it works
Every extra step loses members. Auto enrollment plus rewards sitting in the cart means people use them without thinking, and expiry reminders after 12 months give a reason to come back.
Effort
Medium
Cost
Medium
Best for
Ecommerce brands whose customers already have accounts but ignore loyalty signup forms
In 2009 Airbnb's revenue was stuck at $200 a week. The founders noticed their New York listings all had terrible camera phone photos, so they flew to New York, rented a camera and reshot the listings themselves. A week later weekly revenue had doubled to $400.
Why it works
People weren't booking because they couldn't see what they'd be paying for. Joe Gebbia says it was the first financial improvement in over eight months and the turning point for the company.
Effort
High
Cost
Low
Best for
Marketplaces where the supply side's listings look worse than the product really is
Give affiliates half of what a customer pays for six months
Macaly, an AI website builder, launched two programs in October 2026. Friends who sign up and pay both get credits, while affiliates earn 50% of everything a customer they bring pays in the first six months, in cash. It's pitched at freelancers, agencies and course teachers who already recommend tools to clients.
Why it works
Credits suit happy users, cash suits people who advise others for a living. Splitting the program lets each group get the reward they actually care about, and you only pay out when a customer pays.
Effort
Low
Cost
Medium
Best for
SaaS tools that freelancers, agencies or teachers recommend to their clients
Let free months stack with no cap, then reward the tenth friend
Caliplaces, an app for calisthenics spots, launched referrals on October 23, 2026. You and your friend each get a free month of Caliplaces+, months stack, and the tenth friend unlocks two bonus months, so 10 friends gets you a full year. A friend only counts once they verify, open the app on two days and actually do something like a park visit.
Why it works
The milestone gives people a goal to chase, and the qualifying rules mean you only pay for friends who actually use the app, not throwaway signups.
Effort
Low
Cost
Low
Best for
Fitness, local and community apps where people already bring friends along
Let users publish their work inside your product for anyone to remix
In October 2019 Figma launched Figma Community, a public space where people publish live design files that anyone in the world can inspect, remix and learn from. Instead of screenshots on a portfolio site, the real working file lives in Figma.
Why it works
Every published file is a free template that pulls new people into the product to open it, and it turns your best users into teachers.
Effort
High
Cost
Medium
Best for
Creative and productivity tools whose users already like showing off what they make
Let your mascot hijack your socials and give away a million coffees
On October 21, 2026, Dunkin' let Spidey D, its Halloween spider donut character, take over its social channels in typo filled posts. The stunt came with a giveaway of one million free iced coffees of any size with the code SIZEDOESNTMATTER, one per customer, valid that day.
Why it works
A character takeover gives the giveaway a story people want to share, and a free coffee certificate that has to be used within five days drags people back in for a visit.
Effort
Medium
Cost
High
Best for
Big consumer brands with a seasonal character or product people already love
Literally pay people to sign up, then shrink the bonus
In late 1999 PayPal handed $10 in cash to anyone who opened an account, and another $10 for persuading someone else to join. It sounds reckless, and by March 2000 they were spending $10 million a month on it. Once the network got going they cut the bonus to $5.
Why it works
Peter Thiel told Wired that between January and March 2000 they grew 7 to 10 percent a day. The cash got people in the door, and the network kept them there after the bonus shrank.
Effort
Medium
Cost
High
Best for
Network products where every new user makes the product more useful for the rest, and you have funding to burn
Tinder launched at a party for a co-founder's college-age brother and his friends. The catch: to get in, guests had to show they'd downloaded the app. Tinder went from about 400 users on day one to over 4,000 by the end of the first week.
Why it works
A dating app with ten scattered users is useless, but hundreds of people from the same social circle joining at once means everyone wakes up with matches.
Effort
Medium
Cost
Low
Best for
Social, local or network effect apps that need a dense cluster of users in one place
LIME Fresh Mexican Grill launched LIME Lover on National Taco Day 2026 with four tiers, L, I, M and E, standing for Local, IYKYK, MVP and Elite. Members got a free taco just for signing up and a free small guac for visiting during launch week.
Why it works
A tier ladder that spells your name is memorable and on brand, and tying the launch to a food holiday plus a sign up freebie gives people a reason to join that week.
Effort
Low
Cost
Low
Best for
Restaurants and local brands launching a first loyalty program
Groupon's deals only went live if enough people signed up. If a set minimum was reached, the deal opened to everyone, and if it wasn't, nobody got the deal that day. The very first one, when Groupon launched in Chicago in November 2008, was two pizzas for the price of one at Motel Bar on the ground floor of its own building.
Why it works
Merchants got guaranteed volume before giving anything away, and buyers had a reason to drag friends in so the deal would tip.
Effort
Medium
Cost
Low
Best for
Group buying, local deals and any offer that needs a minimum volume to make sense
Partner with a fast food chain: show our app, get a free burger
Serasa, the company behind the Serasa Score, teamed up with Burger King for Halloween 2026. On October 30, anyone who showed their Serasa Score in the Serasa app at a participating BK drive thru got a free Cheddar Jr. or Chicken Jr. The joke: your credit score is scarier than any monster.
Why it works
The year before, a similar show your overdue bill stunt saw more than 177,000 sandwiches redeemed and 233,000 app downloads in a single day, per the campaign write up.
Effort
Medium
Cost
Medium
Best for
Apps that want downloads and a habit, paired with a retail brand that wants foot traffic
Pay loyalty points for engagement, not just purchases
Martin Guitar's revamped Backstage program, announced October 20, 2026, gives points for buying guitars and strings, but also for player surveys, sharing preferences and answering monthly quiz questions about Martin's history and artists. There are three free tiers, and anyone impatient can still buy the top tier for $75 a year.
Why it works
A guitar is a rare purchase, so points only for buying would leave members idle for years. Quizzes and surveys keep fans engaged in between and hand the brand useful data on what they like.
Effort
Medium
Cost
Medium
Best for
Brands with long gaps between purchases and a fanbase that loves the backstory
Productise the hack your power users already invented
An eBay seller emailed PayPal asking permission to use a button she'd made from their logo for her auctions. Instead of treating it as a trademark problem, the team built an official pay with PayPal button sellers could paste in, and even offered to insert it into all their auctions automatically. Then they went all in on eBay sellers.
Why it works
David Sacks writes that PayPal had under 10,000 users at the end of 1999, hit 100,000 by the end of January 2000 and 1 million a few months later. Every auction with the button was an ad to buyers.
Effort
Medium
Cost
Low
Best for
Any product where some customers are already hacking it into their own workflow
Reward customers with free product for using less at peak times
Octopus Energy's Happy Hours gives customers free electricity on the weekend if they cut usage during weekday peak sessions. On October 27, 2026 it extended the scheme through to Valentine's Day with a token system: each successful weekday session earns a token, and typically two tokens buy a free hour.
Why it works
Octopus says customers have bagged over 8 million free hours worth over £1.7 million, rate it 8 out of 10 on average, and 87% plan to take part again.
Effort
High
Cost
Medium
Best for
Utilities, telecoms and any business where shifting customer behaviour saves you money
Skip the booth and put your product on screens in the hallway
At SXSW 2007 Twitter didn't take a booth on the trade show floor. It paid $11K to put tweet screens in the main hallways of the Austin Convention Center, and set it up so people could join by texting join sxsw to a shortcode and then see themselves show up on the screens.
Why it works
Evan Williams said hallways were where the action was, and it was about the only money Twitter ever spent on marketing. Seeing your own message on a big screen is an instant reason to try it.
Effort
Medium
Cost
Low
Best for
Social and communication products launching at a conference full of early adopters
Spend $4,500 on one funny video instead of a campaign
Dollar Shave Club launched with a single YouTube video, Our Blades Are F**king Great, starring founder Michael Dubin. It looked homemade but was tightly planned with a comedy director friend, and cost just $4,500 to make. Some 12,000 people signed up in the first 48 hours.
Why it works
Funny gets shared, and shared is free distribution. The clip hit 4.75 million views in three months, and apart from some Google ads there was no other marketing.
Effort
Medium
Cost
Low
Best for
Consumer brands in boring categories with a founder who can be on camera
Spend your ad budget on free shipping and returns instead
Zappos offered free shipping both ways and a 365 day return policy, so you could order a few pairs, keep what fit and send the rest back for nothing. Early on, Tony Hsieh chose to take money usually spent on marketing and advertising and put it into the customer experience instead. The warehouse ran 24/7 and the call center had no scripts.
Why it works
Buying shoes online is scary, so removing the risk wins the first order. By early 2009, 75 percent of Zappos sales came from repeat customers.
Effort
High
Cost
High
Best for
Online stores selling things people are nervous to buy without trying
W. P. Carey School of Business, ASU · 14 January 2009
LaunchEmailAdded 1 November 2026
Product Hunt
Test the idea as an email list before you write any code
Ryan Hoover didn't want to spend weeks of nights building Product Hunt for nobody. So he made a group on Linkydink, a tool that emails a daily digest of shared links, invited a few startup friends to post products, and tweeted about it. He had a working version in about 20 minutes.
Why it works
Within two weeks over 170 people had subscribed to picks from 30 hand-picked contributors, which gave Hoover the confidence to build the real site with Nathan Bashaw.
Effort
Low
Cost
Free
Best for
Founders with a content or community idea who aren't sure anyone wants it yet
Use data to find the most influential people, then cold email them
In Figma's early days Dylan Field talked to practically every designer he knew. Then he used Twitter data to work out who the most influential designers were, filtered it to the ones who inspired him personally, and cold emailed or got intros to show them Figma.
Why it works
Win the people others copy and they bring the rest of the field. Lenny Rachitsky lists it under two of the three levers almost every B2B company used early on: your network and going where customers already are.
Effort
Medium
Cost
Free
Best for
B2B tools where a few respected practitioners shape what everyone else uses
Every hack is written up from the linked source, checked on the day it was added. Numbers are as reported by that source, often by the company itself, so treat them as claims, not audited results. Effort and cost are our own rough judgement. Some of these are from years ago and the platforms have changed since, so test before you copy, and stay within each platform's rules and local advertising law. Company and product names belong to their owners, and we are not affiliated with any of them.
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