In a sense, I am in the same situation, as I have created a product, and am searching for a market. However, I do believe that market exists, as I see plenty of evidence of amateurs struggling to teach with only mediocre tools. It's not really the way "west coast" entrepreneurs tend to operate - but quite a few successful companies are started that way.
Not really. Through "growth hacking" you discover the different markets your product fits into. Though you started with the wrong step. You dont design a product and then search for a market. You search for a market and then do the product.
Basically, I agree with these guys: http://jwegan.com/growth-hacking/autopsy-of-a-failed-growth-... and http://www.aginnt.com/post/46854446756/interview-a-growth-ha...
That's where my concepts come from. If you think that me saying "customer development" is BS and that I should be trying to grow like hell and not wasting time with delusional customers interviews, or something like that, please explain why.
Customer interviews are pretty much worthless. People speak louder with their actions. That is why A/B testing is crucial to growth (hacking or not).
Anyhow, don't buy into the hype. Most of the growth hackers out there are social media gurus who discovered a new way to label themselves.
I didn't make my mind. That's why I wanted you to explain it. And I quite agree that growth hacking is very different from customer development. What I am saying, and you apparently is disagreeing, is that you first do customer development and only after product/market fit you do growth hacking. I am now only doing customer development and I think is not a good thing to already start growth hacking.
I am not "buying into the hype", on the contrary, I am postponing the growth hacking for me. I think you assume too much of what I think. But it is ok if we have two different concepts about what growth hacking is - even though I can't say i KNOW what it is.
I am newbie founder, also trying to gain traction, so I am trying to share guesses here, not knowledge.
Actually, I am trying to deliver value, not gain traction. "Growth hacking" must be done just after the product/market fit, and I still don't have it. If yours "solid approval" means prod/mkt fit, than you can start to build some features to hack growth. But I would keep it at small scale. I would say, work hard to keep the course creators coming back to create new courses. Use cheap adwords (that you pay) to attract users to their courses (not to your platform).
But for this to work, your course creators must have an audience. Something you can do is attract common people that publish courses on Youtube and already have small, but regular viewers. If you provide enough value for these "amateur professors", they will bring on their audience. This will demand a great effort of research, to cherry pick the right teachers.
Don't try to create a exponential growth from day zero. Don't be Formspring or BranchOut. Think hard about traction, but a solid, relatively small one. Don't compare yourself (yet) to these big names.