Fake CISO Toy Shop Drove 46K Visitors in 24 Hours: Unconventional Growth Tactics
gefei55 · x · 2026-09-16
Lenny's latest newsletter rounds up 60+ growth tactics addressing the sameness problem in tech growth (launch videos, KOLs, SEO/AEO, social, email, events, paid ads—while Google and Facebook capture the money). Standout cases:
- Fake CISO toy shop: A cloud security company targeting CISOs skipped whitepapers and webinars, instead opening a fake toy store selling absurd items like a "CISO Panic Button" and blindfolds for legal. It went viral on Reddit, drew 46K visitors in 24 hours, and generated hundreds of qualified sales leads—huge ROI given enterprise deal sizes.
- Browserbase tattoo equity: The CEO posted that the easiest way to get equity is to join the company; the second easiest is a tattoo—with a webpage calculating payouts by placement (face = 1%).
- tl;dv mass title swap: The AI meeting-notes company had 50+ employees change their LinkedIn titles to CEO simultaneously, exploiting LinkedIn's job-change notifications for organic reach.
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