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Unpopular opinion 101: "growth hacking" is dead.
[Image credit: Yoav Tchelet]
Okay, here's a take that gets me in arguments, so I'll see how it lands here.
The "growth hacking" playbook everyone was running 2015-2020 is dead.
Not declining. Dead.
And we've got to stop pretending it still works.
What I mean:
1. Cold email at scale - Inboxes are a graveyard now. Reply rates are 1/10th what they were 5 years ago. Anyone telling you they're getting 8% reply rates is either lying or selling you a course.
2. LinkedIn automation - LinkedIn detects it, prospects ignore it, and the people running it loudest are the ones with nothing real to show.
3. SEO "growth hacks" - Google's algorithm and AI summaries killed the playbook of pumping out 200 thin pages targeting long-tail keywords. The brands winning now have actual expertise and authentic content.
4. Viral loops / referral tricks - Worked in a market where the average person wasn't already in 14 SaaS tools. Not in the CyberPunk era we are heading to.
5. "Hack" funnels - Customers know when they're being funneled. They bounce.
What's actually working in 2026 from what I've seen:
- Distribution through real communities. Slow, hard to measure, doesn't scale linearly. Works.
- Founder-led content that's actually opinionated, not the LinkedIn "I learned 5 things from my failure" slop.
- Honest comparison content that mentions competitors fairly. Buyers Google "X vs Y" and trust the result that doesn't pretend to be neutral.
- Customer interviews driving product changes that show up in the product, then the product itself becomes the marketing.
And of course, the Boring stuff like good onboarding, fast support, fixing the 3 things every customer complains about.
None of this is sexy.
None of it fits a "hack" framing.
None of it makes a good Twitter thread.
There are no growth 'hackers' anymore.
But there will always be sustainable Growth Marketing & GTM Engineering...
Okay my rant is over 🥴
#growthhacking #growthmarketing #saas #gtm #saasmarketing
Distribution through real communities and honest comparison content both ring true from what I've seen too. Founder-led content is the trickiest one on that list though, most founders either can't sustain the volume or it ends up sounding like LinkedIn thought leadership anyway....
By finding common ground online, it gets easier to channel unique perspectives rather than push out a persona.
The goal is not to max out volume, but to scale relevance.
Which is why I advocate more commenting over posting.
Doing this has helped Founder-led content evolve beyond mere thought leadership.
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AI HAS STARTED A LAYOFF RACE.
Okay. I’ve been quiet about the AI madness for a while.
Watching.
Listening.
Trying to separate the loudest opinions from what is actually happening.
I’m ready to talk about it.
This is the first post in a series.
No hype.
No “AI will save us.”
No “AI will destroy humanity.”
Just a closer look at the incentives already shaping the market.
A paper by two economists argues that AI can trigger a layoff race.
Here’s the nightmare in plain English:
One company replaces people with AI.
Costs go down.
Investors clap.
Competitors panic.
Nobody wants to be the last business paying a “bloated” payroll while everyone else cuts costs.
So they do it too.
Then the people who lost their jobs have less money to spend.
They buy less.
Demand falls.
Sales drop — not only for the company that fired them, but for everyone.
And what do businesses do when demand drops?
They cut more people.
Every company can say: “We had to. Everyone else was doing it.”
Individually, that decision may be rational.
Collectively, it is a disaster.
Cheaper products sound great — until fewer people can afford to buy them.
That is the trap.
The authors call it a prisoner’s dilemma. Firms capture the savings from automation, while the damage to demand gets spread across the whole market.
Their solution? A tax on automation that replaces workers — not to punish useful AI, but to stop companies from outsourcing the cost of layoffs to everyone else.
Sounds dramatic?
Maybe.
But the next question is more important:
Is this actually what is happening right now?
In the next posts, we’ll look at the market without the AI fever: jobs, money, data, energy — and the parts nobody puts in the pitch deck.
So, freelancers: scared yet?
Sources for this post:
Transparency note:
Written by a human.
Translated from Russian to English with GPT.
GPT’s output, facts, and sources were reviewed by a human.
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𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗪𝗲𝗯𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗠𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗜𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗕𝗮𝗱 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻.
It's solving the wrong problem.
Imagine spending thousands redesigning your website...
Only to discover six months later that your real problem was:
❌ Poor positioning
❌ Weak messaging
❌ No clear conversion path
❌ Slow lead response
❌ Poor traffic quality
The website wasn't necessarily the root problem.
It was just the most visible one.
That's why I believe a good developer needs to think beyond the browser.
Before changing the website, understand the business.
Before changing the design, understand the customer.
Before adding functionality, understand the purpose.
And before recommending a rebuild...
make sure something actually needs rebuilding.
Sometimes the best solution isn't a bigger project.
It's a smarter one.
The slow lead-response point is the one I'd check first. A solid landing page can look broken when calls go unanswered, so I'd look at missed calls before blaming the design.