Growth for startups covers three areas: product-market fit and retention, growth channels and tactics, and decision-making through experimentation.
Before focusing on growth, a startup must ensure it has achieved product-market fit. This means the product must be something people genuinely want, which can be measured through data, particularly by tracking user retention.
Retention rates indicate how often users return to the product, serving as an indicator of whether the product has found its market. Key metrics vary depending on your business model, but metrics related to user acquisition or sales are typical across various models.
Understanding your audience is the foundation of any successful marketing strategy.
Define key demographics: Age, gender, location, income, and education level.
Explore psychographics: Interests, values, pain points, and buying behaviors.
Where does your audience spend their time (e.g., social media, forums, trade shows)?
Which platforms or mediums are best suited to engage them (e.g., TikTok for younger audiences, LinkedIn for professionals)?
Once product-market fit is achieved, the focus shifts to scaling the product. This involves optimizing the product experience through conversion rate optimization and leveraging growth channels like SEO, paid marketing, and referrals.
Oftentimes doing things that don’t scale initially, such as direct user engagement, to build a solid foundation is useful before employing broader growth tactics.
As the startup grows, making data-driven marketing decisions becomes increasingly crucial. A/B testing is a valuable tool for comparing different versions of a product or feature to determine which performs better.
This method helps avoid relying solely on intuition or the loudest voice in the room, instead using concrete data to guide product development and growth strategies.
Consider which metrics best represent the value your product delivers and how frequently users should be engaging with your product. Are these metrics indicating consistent repeat usage?
This answer varies depending on the type of customers you are selling or providing a service to. If your customer is anyone on the street, then you have the luxury of interviewing 100+ people. If your customer, however, is an enterprise client that’s harder to reach, such as a hospital system, then you should aim to interview 10-30% of the people you reach out to.
There are a few different ways to size a market. In bottom-up market analysis, you start with the basic units of your business (e.g., your product, price, and customers) and estimate how far you can scale up those units given what you know about your target customers (e.g., demographics, geographic reach, etc.). Top-down market sizing looks at a total addressable market size (TAM) in a region and then narrows it down to a section you can realistically target: the serviceable addressable market (SAM). Both metrics are recommended for a holistic view of your potential reach
Reflect on direct actions like one-on-one customer interactions, personalized onboarding, or hands-on support that can help refine your product based on real user feedback.
Identify the primary platforms where your target users are most active. Are there specific steps in your user acquisition funnel that can be improved through conversion rate optimization or by enhancing the onboarding experience?
