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I was jamming on some growth lessons with a few other startup friends and figured you all might find them interesting too.
I’ve spent the last decade obsessed with early-stage growth across B2B and B2C. I’ve been fortunate to help grow a Series A startup from $5M to $50M in annual run rate in a year, launch and scale an AI product at TikTok from 0 to millions in weekly revenue in 5 months, and grow my startup, Pikes, from idea to six-figure ARR in 4 months.
I’ve made tons of mistakes along the way, including one that cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Here are the six lessons I’ve learned about early-stage growth.
1/ Center the company around ONE metric. And let it evolve.
I’ve found that having just one North Star metric creates the most focus and impact in the early stages. That metric can absolutely evolve as the company grows.
On Day 0, the metric might not be revenue. It could be something like 10 customer conversations per week.
Once you’ve gathered enough insights, the goal might shift to landing your first 10 paying customers.
After 10, you might focus on getting to 100. After 100, you might shift to growing top-line ARR. Then it might become payback period by channel. Then it’s something else.
Whatever it is, it should be stupid simple. Ideally, you can write it on a sticky note on your desk so you never lose sight of it.
2/ Growth is an engineering problem.
For Pikes, the growth formula is:
# of signups x free to paid conversion% x $average customer value per month x #of months retained
The whole business can be captured in one simple equation. The goal is to track the number closely, find the bottleneck, and focus on it relentlessly. Every growth conversation boils down to: “Which lever are we trying to move this week, and by how much?”
If you can’t write your business as a formula, you don’t understand it yet. You think you do. You don’t.
One model I like a lot is the popular AARRR model:
Acquisition
Activation
Retention
Referral
Revenue
This model can be adapted to most business models.
3/ Growth is also a math problem. Most quit before doing the math.
100,000 emails → 1,000 meetings → 100 customers
You can't control conversion BUT you can control how many emails leave your inbox.
Most people give up at email 200. The ones who don't get to 100 customers.
I have seen way too many founders give up too easily without doing the math.
4/ The scariest thing isn't losing. It's being inconclusive.
The worst experiments aren't the ones that fail. They're the ones that limp along at "okay-ish" and you can't tell if they're working.
Every test gets an exit criterion before it starts. It has to be quantifiable and time-bound e.g. "reach $7 per signup in 3 months or we kill it."
At one of the companies I worked at, I had to temporarily take over a six-figure Google Ads marketing budget due to some sudden changes on the team. I was a total newbie and made a big mistake.
I did a ton of keyword research, optimized all the landing pages, and checked all the “fundamentally sound” boxes I’d learned from YouTube. However, I didn’t set clear exit criteria for the campaign, so even though the numbers didn’t look bad, it wasn’t clear whether we should double down or scale back.
Don’t ever have an inconclusive experiment result.
5/ Run growth like a fuckboy.
This is a lesson I learned from my mentor at TikTok that’s stuck with me ever since.
Run growth like a fuckboy.
Set strict goals. Move fast. Double down on what works. Move on from what doesn’t, ASAP.
1/ Set a real number, not “improve performance.”
2/ Ship the test today, not next sprint.
3/ When something works, pour fuel on it the same week.
4/ When it doesn’t, move on ASAP.
6/ The biggest growth hack: just give a shit.
This sounds obvious, but from what I’ve seen, it’s not that common in startups. You have to show you care through your actions.
At Pikes, I try to offer every new customer a special onboarding call with me. Most customers don’t take up the opportunity and the ones that do really appreciate it. I’ve noticed a big difference in retention between customers I’ve spoken with and those I haven’t.
Another way to show you care is to personally respond to all support emails and do whatever it takes to unblock the customer. Spend a whole afternoon helping a customer solve a problem if that’s what it takes. This isn’t scalable once you reach a certain size, but it’s one of the biggest hacks for earning loyalty and driving organic growth in the early days.
Another way to give a shit is to obsess over the value you’re delivering. For B2B, it might be incremental revenue. For B2C, it could be time saved. Measure it if you can, and aim for 5x ROI for customers.
Just give a shit.
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What are some growth lessons you have learned?
Reply to this email. Would love to hear from you :)
See you next Tuesday.
Leo
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