> By "growth hacking" and leveraging privileged personal connections, both of which I've seen happen time and time again from even YC companies.
This isn't always that beneficial with the tech scene being largely an echo chamber. Compare Meerkat and Secret to Facebook and Snapchat. Meerkat and Secret got a lot of hype from the tech crowed and investors but neither achieved any real word of mouth growth. Facebook and Snapchat on the other hand both had significant traction before they were noticed by investors (Lightspeed, one of the first investors in Snapchat learned of the company through one of its partners' daughters).
> Compare Meerkat and Secret to Facebook and Snapchat.
Fair counterpoint, although it raises the question on what is considered "word of mouth." Both Meerkat and Secret had an absurd (and unwarranted) amount of coverage on Twitter and tech blogs.
In Silicon Valley, that's considered "success" for a startup.
> Fair counterpoint, although it raises the question on what is considered "word of mouth."
The question is whose mouth are the words coming out of and what are they actually saying. So much of the talk about Meerkat and Secret was "this is interesting" and not "I'm using this and you should too."
This isn't always that beneficial with the tech scene being largely an echo chamber. Compare Meerkat and Secret to Facebook and Snapchat. Meerkat and Secret got a lot of hype from the tech crowed and investors but neither achieved any real word of mouth growth. Facebook and Snapchat on the other hand both had significant traction before they were noticed by investors (Lightspeed, one of the first investors in Snapchat learned of the company through one of its partners' daughters).