Ask @Jason: How are your portfolio companies tackling growth?

TL;DR

Jason’s portfolio companies tackle growth by retaining existing customers and acquiring new ones. They study engagement, ask departing users why they left, track acquisition and retention metrics, and either assign dedicated growth staff or make growth everyone’s responsibility. The discussion also explains why leaders must build growth skills across their teams, making the full article useful for turning these principles into concrete practices.

Transcript

all right here's a great question from dylan how are your portfolio companies tackling growth there are two major issues right now in the startup world it's not how do i come up with a great product idea it's not how do i build a great product it's not how do i find a team it's not how do i find customers all those things kind of exist in the world... Read More

Key Insights

• 🤑 The focus of startups should be on retaining existing customers and acquiring new ones through effective growth strategies.
• 🍃 Studying customer engagement and conducting exit interviews can help in understanding why customers leave and improving retention.
• 😤 Building a growth team or fostering a growth culture within the company are both effective approaches to acquiring new customers.
• 🙈 Ignoring growth and not tracking metrics can hinder a startup's growth potential.
• 😤 All team members in a startup should be encouraged to learn and understand the fundamentals of growth.
• 😫 The leader of the organization plays a pivotal role in setting the tone for growth and making everyone responsible for it.
• 🆘 Understanding customer preferences and motivations helps in creating content or products that attract and retain customers.

Questions & Answers

Q: How are Jason’s portfolio companies tackling growth?

They focus on two parts of growth: retaining existing customers and acquiring new ones. Companies study customer engagement, investigate why users leave, track relevant metrics, and use either dedicated growth personnel or a company-wide growth culture.

Q: How can startups improve customer retention?

Startups should study how existing customers engage with the product and identify when they stop using it. They should then contact those customers to understand why they left, whether the product is free or paid and intended for consumers or SaaS customers.

Q: What should a startup ask customers who cancel?

The speaker suggests asking three questions: when they first thought about canceling, why they canceled, and how they plan to solve the problem in the future. These questions can be asked through a form or an actual customer interview.

Q: Should a startup create a dedicated growth team or build a growth culture?

Either model can work. A startup may appoint someone to bring people into the funnel, or it may make everyone in the company responsible for growth.

Q: What growth mistakes should startups avoid?

Startups should not ignore growth or fail to track their metrics. They need to invest time in measurement infrastructure and understand how people discover, engage with, and share their product or content.

Q: Which growth metrics and activities should a company track?

The examples include weekly listeners, how new people discover a show, email collection, email-list activity, tweets, and retweets. The transcript also mentions email open rates as something team members should understand.

Q: Which growth skills should startup employees learn?

The speaker says employees should understand social media, SEO, paid traffic, Facebook and Twitter advertising, and email open rates. He argues that people across different job functions should learn the fundamentals of growth in a competitive startup environment.

Q: What is the leader’s role in creating a growth culture?

The leader must set the tone that everyone is responsible for growth. Leaders should understand growth themselves, help the team learn its skills, and avoid simply demanding results without participating in the effort.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Startups face two major challenges when it comes to growth: retaining existing customers and acquiring new ones.

• Retention of customers requires studying their engagement and conducting exit interviews to understand why they left.

• Acquiring new customers can be achieved through either having dedicated growth personnel or building a growth culture within the company.