Growth Hacking for Engineering Colleges

Growth Hacking for Engineering Colleges

You must be wondering, what is Growth Hacking and what does it have to with Engineering Colleges? It turns out that Growth Hacking is a big deal in the start up world of Unicorns (the start up companies which have become worth Billions of dollars within a period of less than 5 years). And now since these start ups are growing right on the campuses of our Engineering Colleges, the colleges need to understand this phenomenon of Growth Hacking.

The number of start ups which are getting valued at over 1 billion dollars, is growing very fast. 

In the past, the entrepreneurs had to toil for all their life to build a billion dollar company and now these young techie nerds in their twenties and thirties can do this within few years. This is possible only because of the Internet and Web revolution and the marketing technologies built on this web infrastructure. Marketing is not only art and science but now it is hard core technology. The Marketing Director of the past was a well dressed, smooth talking, clever salesman. A "Growth Hacker" - a new title for the head of marketing in the new Unicorns, on the other hand is hardcore programmer, a techie who can build growth engines, test and measure several alternate marketing experiments and create viral sales processes. Growth Hacker is primarily an Engineer who understands Marketing management.

To make our students ready for this new world, our IT and CS students need to be taught this new technology of marketing, being referred to as  "Growth Hacking". This technology is also required by all the student entrepreneurs who are growing up in our CLAs (Campus Linked Accelerators) or EDCells (Entrepreneurship Development Cell). 

What can we do at our colleges? An elective semester course on "Growth Hacking" for CS & IT students as well as all the budding entrepreneurs registered in our CLAs will be a good starting point. While the course can be credit course with a standard set of practicals for CS&IT students, the CLA entrepreneurs can do this course by actually working on their own entrepreneurial ventures.

The colleges also need to build a "Growth Lab" with access to several software tools and services, which can be used by all students of college and specially the CLA entrepreneurs.

The CLA organization also needs to be staffed by an expert in this field and can be designated with the same designation as the Unicrns - the "Growth Hacker". CLA Growth Hacker can actually co-ordinate the marketing efforts of all CLA entrepreneurs and guide and trouble shoot the marketing campaigns of the students.

I will publish in my following posts the Growth Hacking course syllabus, Growth Lab software tools list and Job Description of CLA Growth Hacker. If you need more information then just post your comments on this blog post.