APU students and staff recently learned how billion-dollar startups achieve breakthrough success from growth Guru Sean Ellis, who paid a rare visit to APU’s state-of-the-art campus.

All entrepreneurs, marketers, and technologists from Asia Pacific University of Technology & Innovation (APU) recently had the opportunity to attend a free session with world-renowned growth hacking expert Sean Ellis on 7 March 2024 at APU Auditorium 3.

Ellis is now on a world tour. He is well-known for his book and masterclass on business growth, and he led the early growth and marketing efforts for several highly successful startups including Dropbox, Eventbrite, LogMeIn, Lookout, and Uproar, all of which were valued at billions of dollars.

He shared the breakout growth success of some of the world’s fastest-growing companies; the new growth playbook, and changing your growth approach create, during a free session for the APU community. His best-selling book, Hacking Growth, which has sold over 750,000 copies worldwide provided the tools needed to succeed.

Growth Guru Sean Ellis.

Ellis first focused on what truly matters: delivering massive value to customers and delved into the concept of the ‘North Star Metric’ with real-world examples like Uber and Slack.

He also shared about Product Market Fit (PMF), which means that after consumers test their product, they want to keep using it.

Despite his busy schedule, Sean Ellis managed to visit APU on his World Tour.

“Without PMF, sustainable growth is impossible because companies need to validate before trying to grow,” he said to the audience.

For example, Dropbox had a good PMF, with 100% revenue retention and 50% of must-have users.

As a result, he identified that the company’s next steps should be to identify the ‘must-have’ value, and how the value is created.

Be innovative about pushing the limitations, establish a growth team that drives text/learn velocity, and go deeply into the potential/opportunity.

The Question and Answer (Q&A) session is the most awaited session by APU students.

“Ideas are what drives progress. The most successful companies began their growth process when it was still in its early stages. Implementing an approach becomes more challenging as the business grows.

“As stated by Kady Srinivasan, a former Dropbox executive, what’s unique about Dropbox is that entire company takes ownership of growth,” he said.

Therefore, Ellis concluded that growth transformation is tough since some functional teams are not used to working together, and functional leaders frequently obstruct testing, reducing test pace and impact.

“When tests do not lead to results, teams will grow disheartened.”

He advised the audience not to be afraid to test new ideas and see what works for their business. Remember, even small tweaks can lead to explosive growth!

Sean Ellis received a souvenir from APU presented by Industry Liaison Head Technology Ts. Dr. Vinesha Selvarajah.