Skip to main content

Software Startup Education: Gamifying Growth Hacking

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Fundamentals of Software Startups

Abstract

Marketing is a vital activity for software startups as they seek high growth. A specific type of digital marketing, growth hacking, in particular has attracted a lot of attention in software startups. Growth hacking is about utilizing low-cost marketing practices and existing platforms to rapidly increase the user count of a service. Though topics related to growth hacking such as marketing on a general level have been extensively studied in the past, growth hacking has not seen much direct interest in the academia thus far. As a result, we currently have few tools to teach growth hacking in startup education. In this chapter, we present two board games intended to serve as an introduction to growth hacking.

The definitive version of this chapter was published as a scientific paper in: Kemell, KK., Feshchenko, P., Himmanen, J., Hossain, A., Jameel, F., Puca, R.L., Vitikainen, T., Kultanen, J., Risku, J., Impiö, J., Sorvisto, A., Abrahamsson, P.: Software startup education: gamifying growth hacking. In IWSiB 2019 Proceedings of the 2nd ACM SIGSOFT International Workshop on Software-Intensive Business: Start-ups, Platforms, and Ecosystems, pp. 25–30, Tallinn, Estonia, August 26 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1145/3340481.3342734.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Herttua, T., Jakob, E., Nave, S., Gupta, R., Zylka, M.P.: Growth hacking: exploring the meaning of an internet-born digital marketing buzzword. In: Zylka, M., Fuehres, H., Fronzetti Colladon, A., Gloor, P. (eds.) Designing Networks for Innovation and Improvisation, pp. 151–161. Springer, Cham (2016)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  2. Unterkalmsteiner, M., et al.: Software startups – a research agenda. e-Informatica. Softw. Eng. J. 10(1), 89–123 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Geru, M., Rusu, E., Capatina, A.: Growth hacking practices in a start-up: a case study on thecon.ro. In: Proceedings of the 2014 International Conference on Risk in Contemporary Economy (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Happy, A.: How I Create Growth Hacking Plans for Startups for $10,000: + TOP 300 Growth Hacks You Can Put into Practice Right Away. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, Scotts Valley (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Patel, S., Wormley, R.: 100 Days of Growth Book – 100 Actionable Tips to Grow Your Startup Faster. E-Book

    Google Scholar 

  6. Peters, R.: Growth Hacking Techniques, Disruptive Technology – How 40 Companies Made It BIG – Online Growth Hacker Marketing Strategy. Blep, Malden (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Berger, J.: Contagious – Why Things Catch On. Simon & Schuster, New York (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Berger, J.: How Ideas Spread. The Teaching Company, Chantilly (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Berger, J.: The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior. Simon & Schuster, New York (2016)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Covel, S.: Marketing Your Startup – The Inc. Guide to Getting Customers, Gaining Traction, and Growing Your Business. AMACOM, New York (2018)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Ellis, S., Brown, M.: Hacking Growth: How Today’s Fastest-Growing Companies Drive Breakout Success. Crown Business, New York (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Eyal, N., Hoover, R.: Hooked – How to Build Habit-Forming Products. Penguin, New York (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  13. Fong, R., Riddersen, C.: Growth Hacking: Silicon Valley’s Best Kept Secret. Lioncrest (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Fried, J., Heinemeier-Hansson, D.: Rework. Crown Business, New York (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Holiday, R.: Growth Hacker Marketing – A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing and Advertising. Portfolio, New York (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Linkner, J.: Hacking Innovation. The New Growth Model from the Sinister World of Hackers. Fastpencil, Campbell (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Snow, S.: Smartcuts – How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success. Harper Business, New York (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Walsh, R.: The Web Startup Success Guide. Apress, Berlin (2009)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  19. Weinberg, W., Mares, J.: Traction – A Startup Guide to Getting Customers. S-curves, Los Angeles (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Wheeler, S., Yeomans, P., Wheeler, D.: The good, the bad, and the wiki: evaluating student-generated content for collaborative learning. Br. J. Educ. Technol. 39(6), 987–995 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Kemell, K.K., Risku, J., Evensen, A., Abrahamsson, P., Dahl, A.M., Grytten, L.H., Jedryszek, A., Rostrup, P., Nguyen-Duc, A.: Gamifying the escape from the engineering method prison – an innovative board game to teach the essence theory to future project managers and software engineers. In: Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE International Conference on Engineering, Technology and Innovation (ICE/ITMC) (2018). https://doi.org/10.1109/ICE.2018.8436340

  22. Kemell, K.K., Wang, X., Ngueyn-Duc, A., Grendus, J., Tuunanen, T., Abrahamsson, P.: 100+ Metrics for software startups – a multi-vocal literature review. In: Proceedings of the 1st Software-intensive Business Workshop on Start-ups, Platforms and Ecosystems (SiBW 2018), Espoo, December 3rd, 2018 (2018)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kai-Kristian Kemell .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Kemell, KK. et al. (2020). Software Startup Education: Gamifying Growth Hacking. In: Nguyen-Duc, A., Münch, J., Prikladnicki, R., Wang, X., Abrahamsson, P. (eds) Fundamentals of Software Startups. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35983-6_16

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35983-6_16

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-35982-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-35983-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics