95% of startups fail because they don't find customers
Startups = growth. [1]
Whether you’ve just finished your prototype, or are crossing first 100 customers. You need to grow!
If you think you can have a startup without growth, read Why you need customers first.
So how do you grow?
You won’t find answers in business books
The catch most people don’t get is you can't grow the same way as companies with $50M in funding do.
Fancy strategy is useless when you have $0 in revenue... but most marketing books are exactly like this. Lots of big-company marketing strategy fluff, but no “What I should do” advice.
Knowing how Disney won over the Chinese market is great if you sit on the board of Disney. If you don’t, you can never apply that advice. Knowing how Walt Disney got his first movie deal starting out as an illustrator — that could be valuable!
You can read “before they were big and famous” stories here.
What most people growing a business really need is hyper-practical advice. That’s why this blog exists. To give you a manual. A step-by-step tutorial on battle-tested growth hacks that you can do and actually grow your business.
Hard work, no magical potions
Growth hacks are not magical potions. They require a lot of work.
I am telling you where to start and what to try, but you’ll have to do the digging yourself. You have to go all in. Pick a thing and stick to it. Try every possible variation of what could work. It can be monotonous and boring work, but that usually means you’re doing things right.
You’ll either find a way to work yourself to success, or you’ll learn a lot about your market and customers. Both will help you in the long run.
About me
Hello there!
I’m Jenda Tovarys, Head of Growth at Better Stack. In the last 6 years, I have managed over $2.5 million in ad spend, grown organic traffic to 750k monthly views (similar web), reached tens of millions of people around the world on social, and got millions in revenue in return.
This page was something I was dreaming about when I was starting out. I never found it, so here I am writing it myself. Enjoy!