Valentine’s Day is approaching fast.   My inbox is getting flooded with promotional messages talking about love, couples and relationships. I felt like I had to contribute to the endless string of articles on Valentine’s Day with my own perspective.

So, what do growth hacking and successful relationships have in common?

Commonality #1:

Successful Relationships: Deep understanding of your partner.
Growth Hacking:  Deep understanding of audience, their needs, and behavior patterns.

It all starts with understanding of the audience.   Audience attention is really fickle; it is not something that you can force.  The best way to build a lasting relationship (whether it is a start up or a new partner) is to understand what makes them fall in love with the product, feature, and an offering.

Commonality #2: 

Successful Relationships:  Couples compatibility.
Growth Hacking: Product/Market Fit.

Product/Market fit, just like couple compatibility, is a critical component of longevity for the start up.    While a successful marketer can drum up initial interest in any new product, the long term success and growth will only come if there is a strong fit.    You can have the best product in the wrong market and it will fail.  Just like a relationship will surely fail if there is no compatibility.

Commonality #3:

Successful Relationships:  Paying attention to details, adjusting behavior based on preference.
Growth Hacking:  Data and Research, tweaking product based on usage patterns.

Initial understanding of the audience does not stop after the first research phase.  It is an ongoing process of looking at the data and behavior patterns.   Data and research will inform changes in product (or relationship) required for continued growth

Commonality #4:

Successful Relationships:  Creativity and Ingenuity.
Growth Hacking: Non-traditional methods and techniques.

Processes and routines have their place in both relationships and marketing.   Creativity is what pushes the envelop to the next level.  Repetition can be boring and lead to lost attention.   Winning attention is the most important and the most difficult task of both a partner in a relationship and a growth marketer.

Commonality  #5:

Successful Relationships:  Carefully planned element of surprise.
Growth Hacking: Strategically placed element of surprise.

Similarly to the point above, carefully planned element of surprise is the culmination of growth hacker’s success.   All of the better-known growth hacks used that carefully planned element of surprise.   These are designed to prompt user to share and refer the product (think about a famous P.S.  I love you Hotmail hack).   Just like your significant other would be sharing (in person and on all social networks) news about receiving a surprise bouquet of flowers on her desk at work.

Happy Valentine’s Day!