Before Growth

Over-engaging with early users is not just a permissible technique for getting growth rolling. For most successful startups it's a necessary part of the feedback loop that makes the product good.Sometimes the right unscalable trick is to focus on a deliberately narrow market. It's like keeping a fire contained at first to get it really hot before a... See more

1. Most founders are bad at growth, so if you're amazing at it, the advantage is significant. Consider: Most startups die not because founders are bad or products suck, but because they couldn't figure out how to get anyone to try them.

But here’s the key for an early-stage startup: "As we’re building our plans, we only focus on those first three months, that first chapter. So we break that down into monthly high-level goals, and that's what I hold the team accountable for,” he says. In other words, don’t try to get detailed for longer than a few weeks out. "At a startup, it’s alm... See more

We only want to make great products and when you don’t focus only on making money and have reached a certain level, everything becomes about quality. Right now, there is a certain cultural fascination with fast growth, IPOs and so on, but I want to go slow, really slow and think long-term. It takes time to do good things. You see, this cultural phe

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