Why I’m training 50(!) junior Growth Hackers in the heart of Amsterdam

A few months ago, in December 2015, I was asked to help set up a new school for training young talents that are currently unemployed and on the lookout for a (new) job in the digital era. With (youth) unemployment on the rise and with a personal interest in this particular topic, this immediately got my attention.

The idea was to train graduates and unemployed youngsters to become Growth Hackers in only seven months, with both the necessary theories and hands-on experience in the field. To cover the latter we decided to pair each student with an (upcoming) startup to make sure all the students could use their learned theories into practice during an internship of six months.

Furthermore, we wanted to boost their chances to land a job after the program with these or other companies. We found over 20+ awesome startups willing to partner up with the Growth Hacking program:

Participating companies in January and April 2016

We kicked off the program with a full-time month of education, consisting of all the topics needed as a Growth Hacker. To give you a rough idea of some of the courses, we covered the following subjects:

• AARRR Framework
• A/B testing
• Conversion Optimization
• Content Marketing
• Copywriting
• CSS / HTML
• Data analytics
• Email marketing
• Experiment Design
• Facebook Advertising
• Instagram Advertising
• Landing Pages setups
• Lean Method
• Mobile Persuasion
• Public relations
• Paid Acquisition Channels (Facebook, Adwords, Instagram, Twitter)
• Search Engine Advertising
• Search Engine Optimization
• UX / UI

After the full-month education, the 6-month internship will start. The students will be present and work at their startup for the following months. We only invite them on Fridays within the first three months for a deep dive session on one of the above subjects. The last 3 months of the internship they’re on their own, we only support them via Slack and Skype if needed.

We kicked off the first batch of students in January, the second one in April and we will do the third program in September 2016, which brings the total trained students around 50(!) by the end of the year. This brings me back to the title, why the hell would one train, educate and even mentor your competition.

Many people in my network told me I was nuts when I shared my new adventure plans with them. They told me that I was putting myself out of business within months, that these soon to be Growth Hackers were cheaper and more interesting for companies to work with. I firmly disagree and will prove them wrong.

I strongly believe that educating others, in this case fellow (junior) Growth Hackers, makes me a better go-to-go person for my (future) clients. I’m helping over 50+ startups, corporates and investors with my own agency called Off The Record. While doing so for the past 6 years, I always learned the most from my peers and the people around me. Educating others is the best way to master theory and content in general.

For me, the scariest thing is to lose touch with the market, to stand alone when I need help from others or to not know my own competition. I can honestly say that it would make me proud if one of these bright minds would ‘steal’ a prospect. While I can help a lot of startups, founders and/or corporates, I can’t help them all. Sometimes I lack the time, sometimes there’s no personal connection with the founding team. It happens, gladly I now know the people who might help them out.

Someone much wiser than me once said to keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

While I don’t see them as enemies, you probably get the point by now. Being involved in educating these two groups of students was one of the most challenging projects I took on so far, but at the same time one of the most satisfying!

Special thanks to Roderik Hageman and Jeroen Tjepkema for having the confidence in my skills to take on this challenge, the rest of the team at The Talent Institute and the participating experts for all the hard work so far 🙌

Sounds interesting? Why not get involved:

• Want to become a Growth Hacker during a 7-month education program? Sign ups are now open 👉 here.
• Want to join as a startup and looking for a junior Growth Hacker?
  Sign ups are now open 👉  here.

The program is backed by the Amsterdam Economic Board and part of
the B. Startup School Amsterdam.

Need help with your startup’s growth?
Together with my partner Bram Kanstein, I help startups enhance their product, story and growth with our digital strategy agency OFF THE RECORD. You can email me directly at 👉  bas@weareofftherecord.com!

                                            Ps. we are off the record..