The reason, in my opinion, the term growth hacking can get a bad rap is because too many people use it just for self-promotion. Also, a lot of people think that growth hacking can only be in the form of virality or piggy-backing off of major sources of traffic. While both of those examples can pay off in spades if done correctly, growth hacking is comprised of a ton of small wins, and not just a few examples such as the Hotmail or AirBnB & Craigslist hack.
