I helped a startup grow from $3M to $24M in 8 months.
The secret? Be a little delusional.
Here are 14 lessons I learned about growing a rocketship:
Before going further, always remember:
• It's always a team effort.
• Retention is key to growth.
• It's rare a product grows without marketing.
Okay, let's go:
1/ Find out your wedge and double down.
Wedge: It is simply a strategy to win a large market by initially capturing (1) a tiny part of a larger market or (2) a large part of a small adjacent market.
Our wedge was our unique point-of-view.
Our POV gave the AHA! moment.
2/ It's never one person game.
You need 3 kinds of players: a visionary, executor and processor.
I was the executor, my boss a visionary & my other two key teammates were amazing at processing and making it work.
Lesson:Find a great combination that feels like magic.
3/ Category creation and innovation do pay off.
Our product created its category and innovated its field.
It was a unique sub-category & take on learning.
The timing was right in this case.
Category drives POV & growth.