3.2. Other People Network

A proverbs says: “Cast no dirt into the well that gives you water”. The meaning of the proverb is that you shouldn’t live for the moment and disregard everything around, because at some point you may require the help, support or resources of other people. Accordingly, the following proverb can be used to define what the concept of ‘other people network’ means — at some point in order for your business to make a jump, you may need to exploit possibilities and limitations of what others have created. Let’s learn by some examples!

Partners in Disguise

Once upon a time, there exited an established auction platform with millions of users and millions of items on sale. It was called eBay and on the stage of business theatre it had the main role. There also existed a small payment system, called PayPal, which had a minor role on the stage and wasn’t really happy about that. PayPal’s dream was that every merchant on eBay would use its services and at some point, it thought to itself why not try and achieve that? eBay had other thoughts and didn’t share the same aspirations. PayPal decided to go through the customers and convince eBay of the need to work together. So, what did it do? PayPal team disguised itself as potential clients and imitated to be customers who are interested in buying things on eBay. After discussing all the details with the sellers, “customers” asked whether they could pay using PayPal. At that point sellers weren’t acquainted with such a payment system and in the absence of the mentioned payment gateway “bargains” slipped away. Accordingly, more and more users began to require eBay to integrate with PayPal. After getting tired of the customers’ requests, eBay had finally given up and turned to the PayPal team with a counter offer. Therefore, by getting creative PayPal lived out its dream by making eBay believe it was its own independent decision to do so.

Mattress and Pastry Worth $78.96B

Airbnb is a successful company that offers short-term homestays and experiences. Now there is hardly any traveller in the world who doesn’t know about Airbnb, but it actually all started with a big design conference that was about to take place. The hotels were full, and some participants/visitors had nowhere to stay, so a couple of designers came up with an idea to put an air mattress (=bed) in their loft and offer breakfast (=frozen Pop-Tarts reheated in the microwave) to make a few bucks to be able to pay for their own rent. The first three guests, who agreed to stay and paid $80 each, made the future founders of Airbnb realise that their idea was not that bad and could turn into a noteworthy business. What they needed was for people to get to know about them, but they didn’t have a lot of money (if any) to pay for ads or other marketing techniques.
At the same time, Craigslist was an advertisement website where people could find jobs, things to buy, services to use, and/or places to rent. Even though Airbnb worked really hard on its idea and to remain on the market, it still didn’t have what Craigslist had — a huge user base. Accordingly, it’s not yet clear when exactly Airbnb implemented its most famous growth hack, but the result was amazing! Airbnb decided to reach out to their potential clients and when they found information on Craigslist that someone offered board and/or lodging services, they wrote emails and asked if they also desired to place their ads on Airbnb.
The benefits of the Airbnb and Craigslist integration were numerous! Not only did Airbnb get lot of traffic from Craigslist, but Airbnb listing were far more personalised, with better descriptions and photos, and, as a result, outperformed other available rental listings. When users of Craigslist needed to find an object to stay at, they ignored the usual platform and preferred to book accommodation immediately through Airbnb. By doing some tiring work of writing emails to potential customers and using the network created by Craigslist, Airbnb managed to get on top and build its own successful business.

Conclusions

Other People Network is one of the most powerful growth hacking techniques. You can use other people’s power, you can use other people’s devices, their platforms, their services, but most importantly you need to use your own head to figure everything out. Accordingly, sometimes you don’t even need to tell others that you want to use their resources or become part of them. Be more wise, more inventive, and more growth-oriented. Make other networks feel that they need you and turn to you with an offer that you have planned through in advance!