Svbtle: The Anti-Growth Hack

This was originally posted on Quora, Inside the Product.

Yesterday Dustin Curtis announced a round of funding for his new blogging network, Svbtle. Since its launch less than 10 months ago, the site has gained tremendous respect in the startup and blogging communities, attracting 200 writers from top VC’s to startup founders to professional bloggers. Yet through this success and growth, the product remains exceptionally bare.

In an time where companies employ growth hacking (drink!) to maximize distribution, optimize on-boarding funnels, increase virality, and other tactics to grow its user base, Svbtle keeps it simple and focused.

In many ways, Svbtle is the anti-growth hack. It’s minimalistic design holds true beyond its aesthetics. There’s no tweet button. No following. No comments. No re-engagement notifications. No viral loop. etc. etc. It’s value, it’s growth, comes from its content.

Great content is the ultimate driver of growth.

Growth hacking certainly has its place but there’s something to be said for focusing 100% on that one thing and removing anything nonessential. After all, you’re building a product to solve a problem, not acquire users.

Will Svbtle always be this “clean”? Is this the right strategy? It’s hard to say but as a reader and fan, Svbtle will remain a fixture in my bookmark bar as long as it continues to provide quality content.