Sometimes marketing can be achieved through cheating

WhatsApp exploited a loophole in iOS that allowed it to repeatedly change its app name to land on the featured new apps list and drive traffic.

Reddit initially had no real users—its founders populated the platform with fake accounts to simulate activity, only removing them once organic growth took off.

LinkedIn’s early growth strategy relied on harvesting users’ contact lists (as seen on iPhones, which typically include phone numbers and email addresses) to find friends’ emails and send them invitations to join the platform. In China, WeChat and Weibo followed a similar playbook by syncing mobile phone contacts to accelerate user acquisition.

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