A founder-led growth strategy may be right for some companies, but not most. If it isn’t working for yours, it’s time for a change. Here’s how to make that happen.
What’s driving your business right now? If the answer is you, you may feel pretty proud of that. It’s possible you’re going home (if you do actually go home) after working 12+ hours feeling exhausted but confident that another day of toiling has gotten you a little closer to your goals.
But where, exactly, are you on this journey? If the progression has been so minute as to almost be non-existent, those long workdays may not actually be doing anything for you. That means the answer to “who’s driving your business” and “why isn’t your business growing” is the same.
Worse yet, in addition to trying to do too much yourself, the bigger problem could be that you’re focused on a founder-led growth strategy.
What is founder-led growth?
If you’re more familiar with a company founder as its products or services, you’re looking at the epitome of founder-led growth. When a well-known celebrity prepares to launch a clothing or jewelry line, for example, chances are that orders will be flying in before anything is available. The business takes off because of that celebrity’s fame.
You don’t have to be a Hollywood star or on a reality TV show to make this work, either. Steve Jobs became a household name as the face of Apple, after all. Similarly, most people probably couldn’t name a Tesla model but they probably know that Elon Musk is the founder.
With a founder-led growth strategy, products or services are driven by the popularity of the founder or the personal brand he or she has cultivated.
The two examples just mentioned are clearly wildly successful, but the problem is that this just doesn’t work for most businesses. You may have many followers on your social networks and be generally well-known in your circle, but you probably can’t sell your business just based on the fact that it’s your business. Fortunately, there are some other types of growth strategies that can work if you don’t have a famous last name.
Product-led growth
As the name implies, product-led growth is driven by your product. This doesn’t mean you’re just touting your products (aka, marketing – we'll get to that in a minute), but rather that you’re saying to people, “This is what we make, take it, try it out, see if you like it.”
Companies that have done this to great effect include Dropbox, Slack, and Zoom. Prior to, say, March of 2020, it’s possible that you had never heard of Zoom. But, it quickly became the video meeting platform of choice for almost everybody as the need for virtual conversations rose. And you used it, whether you intended to or not.
Product-led companies strive to create something great, get it out there, and hope that enough people will love it and eventually want to pay for it.
Kristen DeCosta of Churn Buster sums it up nicely: “At heart, product-led growth is incredibly intuitive. It's understanding that no amount of flashy marketing or hard selling can replace the value a customer receives from a product built to fit their needs. Make something that consistently provides value, and you can rely on your customers to come back again and again.”
Marketing-led growth
When you choose a marketing-led growth strategy – even if you have a world-class product – you’re going to let your marketing people (or maybe some outsourced gurus) promote it for you. Perhaps you’re still going to offer some sort of free trial, but you won’t rely on just that to get people hooked.
Hubspot and Ahrefs are examples of companies that take a marketing-led approach. Ahrefs in particular is known for its videos, blog posts, and free courses. This company also puts an emphasis on creating educational and informative content that often only subtly points viewers in the direction of its products.
Sales-led growth
If you have a product or service that doesn’t exactly sell itself and your content isn’t yet resulting in people banging down your doors, it’s time to let sales take over. When you hire the right salespeople, they become like superheroes for your company. They’ll find the right prospects, convert them into leads, and turn them into loyal customers.
Sales-led growth is often leveraged by service-based companies and B2B organizations, but it can be used – and with great effect – by pretty much any type of business. You just need the right team in place to make it as effective as possible.
Founder-led growth is probably the wrong answer
As you can see, there are several better alternatives to founder-led growth. Companies of all sizes – whether they’re still in the startup stage or have been around for years – should be willing to experiment to see what works best.
If your company could benefit from a sales-led growth strategy, and you want to augment your team (or perhaps even begin creating one), MetaGrowth Ventures can help. We’ll find you the right salespeople, give them the proper training, and monitor their progress. You’ll have your team up and running in a short period of time, which means you’ll be able to focus on other, larger-picture ways to grow your business.
Contact us to get started.
Written by
Joe Arioto