Growth Hacker is the New VP Marketing - Andrew Chen

Everything seemed to be flowing logically until I got to this statement "No traditional marketer would have figured this out" (referring to integrating a Craigslist post into Airbnb). To that statement my question is why couldn't a traditional marketer imagine that functionality? They probably wouldn't have been able to create the actual implementation themselves but that would be a job for an engineer regardless of who came up with the idea. If the marketer happened to be an engineer great, if not, it seems like something that would just be delegated to a technical member of the team.<p>From what I understand Airbnb did a fair bit of spamming to craigslist prior to the very slick layout you see there so the idea of marketing via craigslist was already baked into their strategy regardless of it's implementation.

Doesn't this fall under the already-existing title of Product Manager?<p>The way I look at what a PM does, this is exactly it: knowing the technical aspects enough to figure out what is possible and detail it for engineering to build. It doesn't have to be the same person that specs it and build it.<p>That being said, I'd be very happy to get a job as "growth hacker" for I believe I'm better at thinking that kind of integrations through, than at what is on the "marketing side" of product management.

Marketing is becoming hacking, but then again it seems like <i>everything</i> is becoming hacking.

"The fastest way to spread your product is by distributing it on a platform using APIs, not MBAs." As a marketer, this is why I am learning to code. Great article!

"It is expressly prohibited to post content to craigslist using any automated means."<p><a href="http://www.craigslist.org/about/terms.of.use" rel="nofollow">http://www.craigslist.org/about/terms.of.use</a><p>Companies have lost their domains due to this.

Heh, some of the most effective marketing can be done by introverts who are good with numbers. Understanding both customers and code is more achievable and fun than finding just the right "business" cofounder.<p>Great article.

For me this falls under same category as a "designer who can also code". It's great when you can find them but they are harder to find.