Hacking Growth: How Today's Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success

by Sean Ellis

Take the case of Everpix, which was one of the most highly regarded photo apps in recent memory. Designed for users who were tired of the hassles involved with managing large collections of photos on their devices, the service made the process effortless. Brilliantly designed, and praised by critics, the app was a snap to get the hang of and also boasted an average 4.5-star user rating. TechCrunch raved, “The best part about Everpix may be its ‘set it and forget it’ nature. After the onetime installation and configuration, there’s nothing else you have to do.”1 The product’s initial base of 55,000 users were also highly active; about half of them returned to the app at least once a week. The founders chose a freemium business model—the basic version of the app was free, with the option to upgrade to a paid pro version for a $49 annual subscription, and the conversion rate to the paid version was an extraordinary 12.4 percent, far above most freemium product conversion rates, which hover around 1 percent.2 The founders did so much right. But they made one fatal mistake: they failed to focus on finding a way to leverage the enthusiasm of their early adopters in order to drive much faster growth.