Opening the black box of Growth Hacking: Insights into the microfoundations of Lean Startup Capabilities

• Lean startup capabilities support the implementation of growth hacking strategies. • The microfoundation perspective provides insights into lean startup capabilities for growth hacking. • At the individual level, collaboration, communication, and flexibility foster growth hacking strategies. • At the structural level, agility, customer support, and technical development enhance growth hacking. • At the process level, performance analysis, market analysis, and digital marketing sustain growth hacking. Growth hacking (GH) is a strategy of rapid experimentation and testing aimed at scaling firms’ business model. Based on the relationships established in the literature between GH and Lean Startup (LS), we acknowledge LS capabilities play a crucial role in the successful implementation of GH, yet a deeper understanding of how LS capabilities support GH is needed, especially from a theoretical perspective. In this context, through a multiple case study approach analyzing six different startups, we aim to unveil the microfoundations of LS capabilities supporting the implementation of GH, hence opening the black box of GH. This research advances the theoretical development and understanding of GH, with a focus on its relationship with LS and underlying LS capabilities, by leveraging the microfoundations perspective to reconcile theory and practice when examining GH. Additionally, it informs the debate on how GH can create favorable conditions for scaling business models.