Most startups fail because they can’t crack customer acquisition

We see it happen all the time. Founders pour their time and money into an amazing product.

Then they start “marketing.” They try tactic after tactic, but nothing works.

• There are hundreds of marketing channels and tactics to try. Deciding where to focus is overwhelming.
• It’s more expensive and more complicated than ever to acquire customers.
• Even if you find a channel that allows you to reach your ideal customers, they often don’t understand the value of your product—and they buy from a competitor.
• The few sales you are able to produce are unprofitable and you can’t afford to scale your efforts.

Founders, marketers, and operators need to learn how to profitably acquire customers—it’s the only way your startup will succeed.But figuring out how to acquire customers isn’t easy. You’re left with a few disappointing options:

• Searching for content yourself. If you try to find great growth content on Google, you’ll likely waste critical time. And without a growth background, you won’t know what to trust.
• Buying a course. Regardless of your goals or business type, you go through the same curriculum as everyone else. They’re usually long, boring, and fail to show you how to execute in a short amount of time.
• Hiring marketers or agencies. Hiring top marketers requires shelling out thousands of dollars per month. And they’re often slow to act, prioritize large clients over startups, and fail to achieve results.

Imagine having a system in place that repeatedly, profitably generates customers.

• You’d have focus. You’d know exactly where to focus your team and resources, and feel confident since you’re investing in the highest ROI strategy possible.
• You’d get traction. Revenue would consistently grow at a healthy pace.
• You’d hit your fundraising targets, and investors would line up to give you money.
• You’d have top engineers, marketers, and operators knocking on your door asking for jobs.
• You’d spend your time running your startup instead of continuously searching for ways to get new customers.

You need a way to consistently acquire customers — we call this a “growth engine.”

With a growth engine, you get:

• Meaningful growth: A constant and predictable flow of customers to grow revenue.
• Profitability and efficiency: Acquire customers profitably so you can reinvest back into your engine and scale.
• Peace of mind: Have confidence knowing you’re prioritizing the right initiatives and have the expertise of a world-class agency guiding you.
• Focus: Most companies scale using just one growth channel. You’ll be able to align your team and resources around the highest-leverage strategy for your company, freeing you up to run the rest of the business.

Here’s what growth looks like with and without a growth engine:

You can build a growth engine yourself, without wasting money on agencies that just don’t “get it.” Or spinning your wheels trying to go at it alone. All the while building in-house expertise to take control of your company’s growth—you’ll have the knowledge to properly vet marketers and agencies if and when you do decide to hire.

It’s easier than you think.

That’s where the Growth Program comes in.

The Growth Program is designed to help you build your growth engine within 6 weeks. It’s a guided course. You’ll get the playbooks you need to build your growth engine. And you’ll get a dedicated growth advisor to help along the way.

Your advisor will design a custom path and schedule through the program, so you can build and test your engine within weeks—without having to spend hours per day reading curriculum. No more guessing whether your time is well spent.

What sets the growth program apart?

‍You get the same playbooks, templates, and SOPs that top agencies use to grow their startups.

We’ve worked with thousands of startups, so we know exactly what growth and marketing tactics are working now. And we run Bell Curve, our world-class agency that works with top startups like Outschool and Segment.

The curriculum gives you access to the strategy, tactics, and insights that we use to grow companies. In it, we break down every aspect of acquisition and conversion into step-by-step playbooks and live workshops.

It’s like having the Heads of Growth of top startups in your back pocket. And since you know your product better than any agency ever will, you’re in the driver’s seat.

Here’s how you’ll use the growth program to build your growth engine

1. Learn the fundamentalsStart by breezing through quick, actionable growth frameworks to build a solid foundation as a growth leader. You’ll understand exactly how your product grows, define a north star, and identify your key growth levers.

2. Nail your product positioningYou’ll conduct customer and competitor research, hone your positioning, and write value props that convert. Use them across all of your marketing assets: write highly effective landing pages, content, and ads persuading your ideal customer to buy from you.

3. Build your growth strategyWe’ll help you pick the right growth “lane” for your company. You’ll decide whether your startup will most likely grow through paid acquisition, content, viral acquisition, or sales. And then you’ll choose a high-volume, scalable growth channel. One that enables you to consistently and predictably reach and acquire your best-fit customers.

4. Build a high-converting funnelYou’ll create acquisition loops that continuously converts, activates, and monetizes new customers. You’ll use your acquisition channel, build landing pages, and set up an email marketing engine.

5. Launch, experiment, and optimizeProperly test your primary acquisition channel and iterate until you’re profitably acquiring customers.