How to find a growth idea
The phrase "growth hacking" is often read as looking for tricks. In practice it is the question of where to get ideas and which one to try first. Tactics you read on social media worked for someone else's funnel — they may not work for yours.
There are four real sources of ideas, and all of them start from data, not inspiration.
| Source | How to use it | What kind of ideas it produces |
|---|---|---|
| The weakest link in your own funnel | Compute the pass-through rate of each stage, pick the lowest | The highest-impact ideas — always start here |
| Competitor reviews (1-2 stars) | Group the complaints, pick the most repeated | Ideas for positioning and screenshot copy |
| Talking to users | Ask a churned user: "when did you stop?" | Activation and retention ideas |
| Competitors' changes | Track their store pages monthly — what did they change? | ASO ideas; they are running tests too |
The weakest-link method — step by step.
1. Compute the pass-through rate of each funnel stage (relative to the one before) 2. Compare against a plausible benchmark for your category. If you do not know one, just pick the lowest rate 3. Write 5-10 ideas for that stage — that stage, not any other 4. Try the cheapest and fastest one first
The power of this method is that it tells you which question to ask. "How do I grow my app?" is unanswerable. "Why do only 4 of every 100 people who see my store page install it?" is answerable.
The second most useful source: churned users. The users who stayed can tell you why they stayed, but the growth problem lives with the ones who left. They are hard to reach, but a handful of answers is enough: "when did you stop?" and "what happened at that moment?" pinpoint exactly where the funnel breaks.
A frequent trap when hunting for ideas: copying someone else's success story. "App X went viral on TikTok and got a million installs" — the parts you would actually need (when, which audience, which product, after how many attempts) are almost always missing from the story. Read such stories as a source of ideas, never as a recipe.
Practice. Compute the pass-through rate of every stage in your funnel and find the lowest. Write 10 ideas for that stage only — do not judge any of them, just write. Done means: all 10 ideas address the same funnel stage.
📚 Sources and documentation
- App Analytics in App Store Connectofficialdeveloper.apple.com
Splitting funnel numbers by source — how you find the weakest link.
- View and analyze your app's ratings and reviewsofficialsupport.google.com
Reading your own and competitors' reviews is an idea source.
- AppsFlyer resourcesappsflyer.com
Mobile growth guides — supplementary to official docs; verify their estimates.
- Indie Hackersindiehackers.com
Real stories — read them as an idea source, never as a recipe.