Practical Founders Blog

A new wave of AI-powered features and products is bringing back the word "magical" to software. This has happened with every new wave of tech since the beginning of PCs and Macs. Remember how many times Steve Jobs said "magical" in his ...

The biggest challenge for 90% of software companies isn't "building a better product." The biggest problem is getting new customers, revenue, and growth--reliably and efficiently. The growth side of the business is what makes or breaks ...

If you have a product that solves a real problem but you struggle to get attention and convert customers, you have a marketing and sales problem. Here are the 4 most powerful words that can help you increase attention, engagement, and ...

Growing from $3M to $10M ARR is almost the opposite game for B2B SaaS companies than getting to $1M in revenue. It's so different that most sales and marketing team members who got you started won't learn the new game to scale. It's a ...

It's a great time to grow a practical SaaS company that isn't "AI-first" and is all about VC funding. Sure, AI-first companies are getting lots of attention and most of the crazy VC funding. Some will win big for sure, but most won't. But ...

Half of the SaaS growth game is keeping your company alive long enough to try things that can unlock efficient growth. Most software startups don’t succeed - VC-funded or not. And the successful ones rarely get there in a straight line. ...

More people resolved to post almost daily on LinkedIn this January, as they did last year at the same time. You can see it and feel it. This means there is MUCH more content on LinkedIn, but about the same number of people to see it. AI ...

Product-Market Fit and Ideal Customer Profile are usually 25% customer demographic traits and 75% behavioral and belief traits. Many founders don't learn this until too late. The first cut of PMF and ICP are demographic traits, of course. ...

Here are the 7 Stages of SaaS Churn, when you build a successful and valuable company: 1) Churn and Burn When you start, the first thing you do is sell your crappy early product to those who will pay you. You learn very quickly which ...

SaaS is dead! SaaS is back! VC funding is down! Now it's up! These headlines get the clicks, but there are only two reasons SaaS founders should pay attention to these trends. 1) You're serious about selling your company in the next 6 ...

I asked more than 30 practical SaaS founders about the progress they made in their businesses this year, starting with the question: What was your revenue growth rate in 2024--and how do you feel about it? Practical founders are building ...

This bootstrapped SaaS startup took 5 years before it started growing steadily every month. Five years after that, the founders sold it for $300 million. SaaS startups also take time and crazy effort to get moving before growth starts and ...

Product-led growth (PLG) in SaaS sounds simple, but it’s much harder than it looks to succeed and grow faster with the product doing most of the GTM work. Product-led growth is not new in software, but the PLG term is new. There have always ...

Savvy entrepreneurs tell you not to just “Build It and They Will Come” with your software startup. But once in a while, very rarely, this product-only strategy actually works. Word spreads so fast that you don’t need to invest any time or ...

Don't feel bad when someone tells you your startup serves "just a niche." It's actually a compliment. Everything is a niche of a niche...of a niche. This is an old put-down in startup-land, especially from institutional investors ...

In modern SaaS, TAM is overrated and TIME is underrated. It's about time we started talking about TIME > TAM. What's your TAM (Total Available Market)? That's generally an investor question. How big can this business get? Can ...

Raising VC funding is not very common. And it's very expensive for founders, but... There’s something that many SaaS founders miss by not having experienced investors: Help from expert advisors who are very committed to you and your ...

Twenty years ago, it was really hard to build software, but it was relatively easy to find open markets with people eager to buy from you. It’s the opposite now. It’s much easier to build software now, but it’s more difficult and expensive ...

Most new SaaS founders don’t realize the bottom of their revenue funnel isn’t selling new customers. Sales is important, of course, but it's just one step in the revenue system that creates the most efficient growth and highest value for ...

How are SaaS companies growing when top-of-funnel tactics that worked last year almost don't work at all this year? More content, outreach, and spending on sales and marketing have less effect in this year's explosion of automation and ...

One of the most common ways practical founders get into SaaS is by creating a software product business out of a service business. But it’s harder than it looks to try new and risky things when you already have a steady and successful ...

What's the weakest link in your SaaS revenue growth chain? Where should you focus first to have the most efficient impact on revenue growth? Growing revenue isn't simple or obvious or just one thing. Otherwise, every company would grow ...

SaaS pricing can be easy when you start, but it’s always more difficult to manage as your company grows. Pricing improvement decisions get complicated quickly. When you are starting, you need to get in the price range that makes sense to ...

Vertical market SaaS companies are great businesses with efficient customer acquisition and sticky solutions. But a single industry focus can also have speed bumps that must be managed well, or you'll get stuck. Here are the five most common ...

30% average annual revenue growth is healthy and sustainable for most bootstrapped SaaS businesses, but it's a nightmare if you have raised big VC funding. Here's why: Many B2B SaaS acquirers consider a 30% growth rate with some profits ...

Some larger fintech payments businesses are buying smaller vertical SaaS businesses--as a form of distribution. They are acquiring customer bases to sell more of their payments services. Investors and acquirers love to see a profitable ...

The most important letter in MVP is the V. It’s the Viable in Minimum Viable Product. Viable means highly useful. Minimum means incomplete and imperfect. When should you ship your new thing in a software startup? When should you push that ...

When you have a vertical SaaS business, your churn rate is either a force multiplier for your business--or a growth killer. High churn for too long will permanently hobble your SaaS company when you sell in a tightly connected market. Sure, ...

“Our SaaS product works, we have happy customers, and we have enough leads—but our demo close rate is too low.” Every day, B2B SaaS founders tell me about the hard problems they are working on in their startups. This is one of the better ...

Doubling down on a narrow niche is the fastest way to create a $5 million - $10 million ARR (revenue) software company that can create life-changing wealth for practical founders. But only after you get started, try many things, and find out ...

Creating software to improve your own services business can be a great way to create a standalone SaaS business. But some major pitfalls trip up most founders who are trying to make this services-to-software transition. First, the good ...

Perseverance usually comes at the top of the list of entrepreneurial success traits. But there’s a twist that isn’t so obvious that makes perseverance work. Persistence doesn’t help if you keep doing the wrong things that don’t work. You ...

True product-market fit usually takes years; most startups don't get there. But there's a rare situation when a software business can start with product-market fit and ecstatic customers years ahead of the rest: First, you need to build a ...

For up-and-running SaaS companies, growth isn't just about GTM--going to market to acquire new customers with marketing and sales efforts. There are other levers that help create more efficient revenue growth in the long run. The magic of ...

People-powered tech businesses require documented processes much earlier than scrappy “software-only” solutions. These founders procrastinate documenting processes and enforcing processes at their peril. On the outside, services-assisted ...

I recently interviewed a dozen founders who have run their software businesses successfully for 15 years or more. When asked how they sustained profitable growth for so long, they all talked about the same thing. Customer service. Not ...

I talk to so many founders who grew their valuable SaaS business out of their services business that I wonder why this isn’t a recommended path for young founders. There are many obvious benefits:  Young entrepreneurs learn how to ...

I have worked with hundreds of software startup founders on their messaging and websites through the years--and watched the results. Here are the simplest ways to improve conversion on your website and create momentum in your early startup. ...

I just crossed 40,000 followers on LinkedIn last week. Here's how I doubled my followers last year with 5.3 million post impressions--and, more importantly, why. I'm not recommending you do these things. You may find an insight you can ...

Most practical SaaS founders want to do better with SEO to drive efficient revenue growth. More organic, less paid marketing. Who wouldn’t want that? When it works, an inbound marketing strategy that combines organic search engine ...

I delete comment spam on my LinkedIn posts. They add no value to the real discussion there and are clearly promotional, AI-created or not. It's like barging into a real conversation, repeating what people say, and handing out business ...

Your SaaS startup can make a better version of something that already exists or it can make a new thing that people haven’t heard of yet. They are two different games. Existing categories in markets that are already crowded New ...

The SaaS business model keeps getting better while the VC business model is getting worse. They are headed in opposite directions. The SaaS business model is one of the best business models in 100 years. It's great for founders, customers, ...

Your Crappiest Customer Profile (CCP) is the opposite of your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). They exist on a continuum of customer traits that will either accelerate your business or kill your business. Just because they bought your product ...

The fastest way to grow your early SaaS startup isn't working on your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). It's identifying your CCP--your Crappiest Customer Profile. Finding and saying No to your most expensive and worst customers usually produces ...

Product-Market Fit and Ideal Customer Profile are usually 25% demographic traits and 75% behavioral and belief traits. Many founders don't learn this until too late. The first cut of PMF and ICP are demographic traits, of course. They are ...

The SaaS founders I know with the highest growth rates in 2023 are also the most clear about what they want to accomplish in 2024. I have been working with dozens of SaaS founders, including 35 founders in my Practical Founders Peer Groups, on ...

There’s a hidden truth behind the product-market fit that creates happy customers and efficient growth in any SaaS business. Product-market fit sounds like this:  Make an amazing product that delights your customers.  They buy more, tell ...

SaaS startup founders often neglect a very important goal area when planning for next year. This question won't appear in any planning frameworks, but it creates a powerful multiplier that will make achieving your other goals easier: What's the ...

The biggest challenge for 90% of software companies isn't "building a better product." The biggest problem is getting new customers, revenue, and growth--reliably and efficiently. The growth side of the business is what makes or breaks software ...

One of the most powerful ways to improve startup execution and align your team is to become great at setting a single goal to rally around. I'm surprised how many founders I work with are not as clear or specific as they need to be about where ...

Some things have to change as your SaaS company grows bigger. But not all things.If your company is bootstrapped and growing very fast, you can choose what to change and what to keep doing. If your unusual culture or business model works, you ...

For certain startup founders who are wired to be generously helpful, creating an active community of peers can be a powerful way to fuel customer growth with loyal fans. But thriving communities are not about selling your software product at ...

Every software founder understands that if they build a valuable company, they can win a big financial prize if they sell it someday. Work hard for many years. Be frugal and invest wisely. Do the right things. Get the SaaS flywheel ...

Here's one of the most dangerous words for ambitious entrepreneurs: EVERYONE. "Everybody who wants to save money should want what we have." "We sell to every small business." "Every doctor's office needs our solution." ANY and ALL are ...

Growing from $5M to $10M ARR is almost the opposite game for B2B SaaS companies than getting to $1M in revenue. It's so different that very few sales leaders or salespeople who got you started will be around when you scale. It's a different ...

The "Purple Ocean" strategy has the best odds of success for SaaS startup founders who want to grow efficiently without big VC funding. It's a twist on the Blue Ocean strategy of creating a new category and the Red Ocean strategy of competing ...

Last week, three practical founders told me, "I could raise a few million dollars, but I don't know how we'd invest that much money so quickly." I hear this more often these days. It's the opposite of the "raise as much as you can and spend it ...

What should I do with my slow-growing SaaS startup? Should we stick it out or find a better opportunity? A founder I know asked me this question this week and we talked about his situation and options. He's a smart and savvy founder who can ...

Once or twice a year, a new software entrepreneur tells me they "don't want to be pigeonholed." This inevitably means they didn't want to declare a clear focus and specialty. They don't want to cut off any possible customers they MIGHT sell to ...

Three SaaS CEOs I advise are looking for fractional CMOs right now--or potentially senior new marketing leaders. They each have growing software businesses with $2M-$5M ARR, but their marketing managers and specialists have taken them as far ...

There have been layoffs in big tech and many former execs are now fractional experts and consultants. I'm getting a lot of outreach for referrals, but many new service providers struggle to help me refer them. Here are the 3 things I recommend ...

The common sales and marketing tactics used by SaaS companies have been beaten to death. This creates the primary risk for new software startups. It's just very, very difficult for frugal software startups to create an efficient customer ...

The potential success and value of your modern SaaS business is all about Sales and Marketing. Quality products are necessary but not sufficient. This is often a hard lesson to learn, especially for super-coder technical founders like Wissam ...

Many of the practical SaaS founders I interview every week have never been on a podcast before. Only a few are podcast pros. Here are the 5 things I recommend to these founders to avoid low-quality audio quality on their side that will be ...

If you have a product that solves a real problem but you are struggling to get attention and convert customers, you have a marketing and sales problem. 90% of up-and-running software companies have this problem. Here are the 4 most powerful ...

I talk to practical founders every day who have built really valuable software companies without any outside funding. No two founder stories are the same. They do it in their own ways. But underneath all their stories are the same principles ...

Most of my conversations with startup and early-stage software founders this week weren't about funding or bootstrapping. They were about how and when to FOCUS to accelerate traction and growth. Focus is usually the F-word for early-stage ...

New software founders often ask me to review their funding pitches or their startup strategies. I let them talk and I ask questions. Then I tell them "This is what it sounds like to me. Did I get that right?" They usually talk for 15 minutes ...

I spent 3 days with 8 successful SaaS founders last week. Each founder presented their vision of what they are trying to create with their company. These discussions were very different from the thousands of investor pitch presentations or ...

Most VC investors and software entrepreneurs were skeptical of the new SaaS recurring revenue model during 2005-2010. Why would you invest so much upfront and only take a little slice of the revenue each month? Before that, software companies ...

Every year we all get more automated robocalls, unsolicited emails, robotic LinkedIn DMs, and spam texts. It makes us tired. We don’t want to hear from marketers and outbound sales development reps who are trying to reach us. SaaS founders ...

Two weeks ago I called my mobile phone service provider and told them to shut off my voicemail completely. I was getting 5-10 spam voicemail messages a day. I haven't received a useful non-spam voicemail in a few years. I'm tired of the ...

One of the biggest differences between bootstrapped software companies and their VC-funded peers is their time frames. Most venture funds have a 7-10 year time horizon. The companies they back need to grow fast and sell in under 10 years to win ...

It’s rare when a business in a tech-laggard industry like real estate creates its own custom software for internal use. And then spins it out to create a new software company that sells this solution to their peer competitors. And then grows ...

I heard from three new SaaS entrepreneurs this week who each had the same question: How should we price our software now that we have our first 5-10 happy customers? First, congratulations on getting that far. Most savvy people who find ...

I wish more bootstrapped SaaS founders would think like VCs. Not about taking on big funding, of course. It's how VCs play the Power Law to patiently look for an advantage and then boldly place a few bets that can create outsized results. It's ...

Investors and bootstrappers have very different reactions to achieving real Product-Market Fit. Big Funding Investors: Great! You have finally happy customers and accelerating revenue. You should add our rocket fuel funding to go faster ...

Venture capital investors won’t invest if your payback opportunity isn’t big enough to provide massive returns. What if your growing software company could someday provide those big VC-scale returns, but not in the 5-7 years these investors ...

The journey of successful software companies is most often told with a revenue line that goes up and to the right. We don’t hear much about the internal growth that had to happen to make that topline growth happen. The unlikely evolution from ...

We heard about big VC funding and sky-high stock prices in 2021. Now we’re hearing about layoffs at most of these companies in 2023. Go fast and spend big while you can. Cut back and slow down when you can’t. That’s not the only way to play ...

Patience is an underrated superpower of successful entrepreneurs. I don't mean slowness or never being bold. You can be fast and impatient about SMALL things like execution and experiments. Speed works here. But when you are impatient about ...

So many things are changing in the software startup game every year. But there are still some universal and fundamental “laws of nature” that haven't changed. Yet. These tend to be how we think as humans—our deepest wiring. This week’s ...

A really important milestone for a new startup is getting “traction” with your earliest customers. Traction simply means having enough customers using your enough of your product so you can get meaningful feedback to make better ...

It's that time of year when ambitious entrepreneurs and startup leaders plan for the next year of their quests. Now it’s time to assess how you did this year and determine what needs to happen next year. Great execution requires serious ...

Founders often tell me, "How can we be big unless we sell to everyone?" I call this the Target Market Trap. It's where most startups get stuck on their way to achieving their big dreams. Here's one way I help ambitious entrepreneurs clearly ...

Why doesn't Chik-fil-A sell hamburgers? Chick-fil-A is the 3rd largest fast-food restaurant chain in the US, behind McDonald’s and Starbucks. They just sell chicken sandwiches. $17 billion of them a year. Chick-fil-A doesn’t sell ...

I have been blogging, speaking, and contributing on social media for over 15 years. But I didn't create big crowds and make a sizable impact until I did this: I FOCUSED IN on a specific type of software founder creating startups at a specific ...

There are many levels of traction in the software startup journey. Here are the levels I see most often: Idea Traction - You tell people about your idea and they don't think it's totally stupid. Doesn't mean much Prototype Traction - You ...

It’s generally easier to start a software startup with a group of potential customers with a big problem they will pay to solve. Then build a product just for that. Or you can build a cool product with whiz-bang technology and then go in ...

It’s easy to get ahead of yourself and build too much product before real users get their hands on it. Some industry experts go and build the “complete solution” before talking to potential customers. Most startup newbies set out to deliver a ...

The most successful founders and CEOs say NO more than everyone else. How does that work? Doesn't having a bigger business allow you to say YES more often? You'd think so, but it doesn't work that way. Experienced entrepreneurs, big business ...

There are some tried and true practices that work in the startup game. But even when you do all the startup steps in the right order, it usually doesn’t work. Most startups still don’t grow up. A bit of MAGIC is required and difficult to ...

People ask me all the time about their startup or product idea. "What do you think of my idea?" I don't give them any answers. I can only ask them a bunch of QUESTIONS. Here's what I ask them: Who do you think will buy and use it? What ...

"One big reason we were successful is that we identified our ideal customer profile early, and we owned it, and then we really targeted them. "When you can start saying NO is when your trajectory starts taking off. "In the beginning, you’re ...

The average valuation for a growing $3M-$5M ARR SaaS business is a 7X multiple of revenues, for the small slice of higher-quality deals I see. Some are higher, some are lower. So these SaaS companies are already worth $15M-$50M to serious ...

One of the biggest differences between successful practical founders and founders who have raised big funding is not their speed. It's their PACE. Practical founders go slower at first. It makes all the difference later in order to grow ...

I talked to software founders last week in Ireland, Salt Lake City, El Paso, Dallas, Phoenix, and other places. I didn't recommend the same thing to any of them about funding and growth. There is always "it depends" with many paths. Some ...

"It's all about the X." I told that to a technical founder yesterday and it finally got through to him. We were talking about their prospect pipeline, expenses, milestones, funding, and marketing activities. There are many serious projects ...

If you didn't hear this story for yourself, you might not think that a tiny software company could bootstrap and grow profitably for 8 years, then finally raise outside capital at a $2 billion unicorn valuation. But they did. In this episode ...

I was on an accelerator panel this week to give feedback to the founder of a marketplace startup. Her company has already generated over $500K in net revenue with no outside funding. Happy customers and providers too. She quickly presented ...

There has been a serious pullback in the valuations of private and public software companies this year. But I'm not seeing a serious pullback in demand for software tech from business or consumer buyers. Not yet. For speculative web3 and ...

"The future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed." -- fiction author William Gibson. You've created a new thing that actually works. But that's not enough. A few customers use it and they are ecstatic about how you solved a ...

Building a software product is very hard. But getting customers, revenue and steady growth is now the HARDER PART of the startup-to-scale game. Great products are necessary but not sufficient. It doesn’t matter if you are just starting or ...

I have seen a lot of technical founders become capable CEOs and great leaders. But I have never seen a savvy business/sales founder develop into a great coder and engineer. This is mostly because leadership, management, and the CEO's job are ...

When I’m talking with startup founders, I often use a specific term that requires some explanation. It's LEVERAGE. As in "Where's your leverage in that area?" This isn't financial leverage that multiplies your investment results. I'm ...

Entrepreneurs are optimistic. They find hard problems and think "I could fix that." Normal people don't do this. Most people run into problems or frustrations and just think "that sucks." A big part of any entrepreneurial opportunity is the ...

For startup founders who have just finished building their first "sellable" product, I am often the first to tell them what their real title is. For their primary job. It's VP of Sales. Yes, it's hard to create software and create new ...

How many things did you try before you decided on this startup idea? First-time entrepreneurs are surprised to hear this question. They just don't know simple "innovation math" yet. Experienced entrepreneurs know that for every 10 good ...

All startups have to cross a massive credibility gap on their way from a startup idea to becoming a big company. Early customers, employees, investors, and partners all have a healthy skepticism about your new thing. Rightly so. There's a ...

Measuring avg. Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) with clarity and confidence is really hard when you are starting your SaaS business. Here are the most common CAC mistakes that SaaS startup founders make before they hit $1M ARR: 1) Not ...

For startups trying to find traction and happy customers, it just doesn't pay to try to sell to everyone in your market. Or the average customer. For startups selling new things, market averages are meaningless. You're not going to sell to ...

One of the most useful tools I use in entrepreneurship and marketing is The 10% Rule. I use it every day. It works like magic well when looking at any market or any set of execution results. It's like the 80/20 Rule of the Pareto Principle, ...

What's the least believable part of this startup financial projection chart? Hint: It's not the hockey-stick revenue growth. 100% YOY revenue growth is not common, but it happens. The crazy part of this forecast is the profit number. Fast ...

A lot of social debate in the last week about using Calendly and other scheduling links. Here are 9 ways I have used Calendly to schedule 3000+ meetings in the last 5 years with almost no effort on either side. 1) I don't share or send my ...

Who is more likely to get their startup to product-market fit: technical founders or business-side founders? Greg R. asked me this question on a podcast interview this morning. Here's the simple answer: Both technical and business ...

I talked to 3 technical founders this week who had the same problem. In Ukraine, India, and Phoenix. These are serious coders who have built real $1M ARR software businesses with their teams. But each of the startups stopped growing. They ...

The savviest entrepreneurs and the most experienced marketers know something that isn't obvious. You wouldn't know it if you haven't done it for years. It just looks easy and effortless when you see it done well. But great marketing ...

I talked with a technical founder today who never got revenue traction in his startup, but he was able to sell his technology to a bigger software business that wanted the platform he built. I asked him what he'd do differently next ...

Show me any growing business with a line of waiting customers... and I’ll show you a specialist who is known at the best at something specific in their market. We don’t line up for generalists. (Unless they are now effectively ...

The most successful founders I know are extremely savvy about execution. Superpowers. But they also were thoughtful and clear about the strategic decisions they needed to make to execute so well. Most founders aren't good at both of ...

Here's my definition of strategy: Strategy is just the decisions you make that make execution work better. If execution doesn't improve eventually, it was the wrong strategy. I believe these things about strategy and execution: 1) Execution ...

I caught up with a founder friend yesterday to hear about his new Web3 startup that uses blockchain, cryptocurrency, and NFT technologies. We last spoke when we both lived in Phoenix a few years ago. Now I'm in Dallas and he's somewhere ...

Finding product-market fit requires product-market grit. I don't know any entrepreneur who easily found their sweet spot of the right customer and the right product at the right time and things just took off. It's always hard and takes ...

A founder I advise just sent their annual 2021 investor report today. They grew from $1.8M ARR to almost $5M ARR this year. This means the value of the company more than doubled too. I'm a happy investor in this software company. They are ...

Here's my favorite thing about the crazy game of growing startups into bigger global companies: Fast-growing companies are opportunity factories. Fast growth creates massive career acceleration for those who join early, grow the fastest, and ...

"How big is your potential market?" is an interesting question. But it's not very helpful to software startup founders. Here's what's actually useful: "What's the fastest way to get 100 or 1000 extremely happy customers who pay you and ...

Product-market fit means a company has "very happy customers who want to buy more and who recommend your products to their peers." But the concept of Product-Market Fit has been far more simple and useful for VC investors (who created the ...

Last week in Phoenix I spent an hour with my good friend Hamid Shojaee to talk shop on his AZ Tech Podcast. Here's what we talked about: What's happening in the Arizona startup tech scene right now Which Phoenix software companies are ...

I have talked to dozens of founders and CEOs this month about their plans for 2021. The most powerful words a founder can say about their plans next year: Doubling down. "We will accelerate our growth by doubling down on ..." ...the ...

"Why do we need to worry about our category as a startup right now?" That's a common question. The category game is not for every business. Small businesses play in existing categories. Big businesses dominate categories that are already ...

A real conversation with a talented and dedicated founder: "The seed investors I'm talking to don't think our TAM (total available market) is big enough since we focus on healthcare." Really? How many real companies in your market? "738,000 ...

I have been looking for an example of a successful company that started "wide" by being many things to many people and then grew from there without focusing. I have been looking for 20 years. I still haven't found one. It's totally ...

Industry-focused software startups have a much better chance of getting to product-market fit than other startups. Vertical software companies focus on a particular industry, like dermatologists, childcare centers, insurance agencies, ...

Every buyer categorizes everything they buy, including your product or service. Every company is playing one of only three category games. The first rule of the game is to know which game you are playing, but most startups and growth ...

A salesperson selling face to face can find a customer problem and then select one of their many solutions to solve that problem. That's how sales works: "We can fix your specific problem from our menu of solutions." That's not how marketing ...

When you have a growing business and you are pushing hard, you look for every advantage, shortcut, and resource that can help you keep growing. Grow or die! Some revenue-accelerating tactics create immediate results and can be repeated at ...

Chick-fil-A is now the 3rd largest fast-food restaurant chain in the country, behind McDonald's and Starbucks. They just sell chicken sandwiches. $13 billion of them a year. Chick-fil-A doesn’t sell hamburgers. Their average revenue ...

From early 2011 to the end of 2015, I was the chief marketing officer of Infusionsoft (now called Keap) where I led the marketing group. I was part of an amazing team that helped grow this amazing startup into a world-changing software ...

All of us experience marketing all day long, almost everywhere we look. Surprisingly, this causes most people think they understand the marketing game. That’s like eating a nice meal at a restaurant and proclaiming you can cook it yourself ...

When I see a movie or a painting, I see the result of what someone created. I don’t think much about how it was made. I don’t understand it like someone who studied art or made a movie. When I see a website, ad, sales pitch or product ...

Public Relations is one of the trickier parts of the marketing game. It’s not like digital advertising or email marketing, where you can push a button and make measurable things happen right away. A year ago, I hired a savvy PR agency to ...

I have been an observer and student of the Scaling Point for 25 years. It’s the strangest thing. It’s completely obvious on the outside, yet we don’t notice it or understand it. It’s hidden in plain sight. Like the joke about the fish ...

In the startup-to-scale-up growth game, achieving “product-market fit” has become a common indicator of a startup’s potential to grow into a successful company. This term was created and popularized by startup tech founders, investors and ...

Discovering and executing on your Scaling Point is a necessary requirement for growing a little company into a big one. But why is it so rare? There are two reasons why Startup ADD is an almost universal disease that is very hard to ...

When starting a new business, you try many things to learn what really works. Your best ideas may look great on your whiteboard or in a slide deck, but they may not work in the real world. So you go forth and build your first product, try ...

Your startup has built a software product that has "cool features" that actually work. That's a big milestone for every startup. The thing actually works! Your customers talk about your product's features by name and they give you feedback ...

Remember the old days when marketing resulted in printed material you could touch and feel? Just 10 years ago, the majority of marketing artifacts included printed brochures, product packaging, magazine advertisements and direct mail letters. ...

Imagine a world where people don’t listen to what your business says about your new product: they only listen to what other people say. A world where there are hundreds (or thousands) of choices for almost every product. Where every buyer ...

Ambitious entrepreneurs naturally aim to create large companies in large markets. They make their plans, build their newfangled products, assemble scrappy teams and then set out on their holy quests to be big winners. But most startups don’t ...

Any business that is succeeding in the marketing game is relentless about executing their focused strategy. Owning a valuable position in the market is not easy. It takes focus, creativity and discipline. The discipline to communicate your ...

Do you know what visitors are doing on your website each week? Where did these visitors come from? Which pages did they think were most important? Which search terms brought them to you? Using Google Analytics, the popular and free website ...

Think about it: Who is your customer? What does this customer value? These are two of Peter Drucker’s “Five Most Important Questions” for your organization. I often find myself returning to Drucker's questions in strategic discussions about ...

Outliers is the latest book from best-selling author Malcolm Gladwell. He also wrote The Tipping Point, one of my favorite marketing books. Gladwell is an astute social researcher and a master storyteller. His other books and his columns in The ...

The marketing communications challenge is getting harder, not easier. Why? Because there are more communications channels than ever. Each channel you use requires time, effort and some expense. And it’s not easy to be proficient with so many ...

It used to take considerable expense to create a high-quality company Website, even for small businesses. I just finished a project that confirms that popular and inexpensive Website creation tools are taking much of the development cost and ...

One of the hardest things for entrepreneurs to tackle is the definition of their core business "positioning." Positioning is known by many names - your focus, your marketing strategy, your elevator pitch, your business description. This ...