Our 7th international speaker is Brian Balfour, Founder of Reforge and ex-VP Growth of HubSpot. Brian shared with us 3 of the most common mistakes he see’s start-ups make when transitioning to a stand up.
1. The first mistake is thinking more of what got you to where you are, will take forward. In the early stages, you are typically using traction channels. These are channels that are lower competition and cost but typically have lower ceilings. At some point, you have to transition and focus on one of five major channels to scale. Layering on additional traction channels won’t move the needle.
2. The second mistake is they underestimate what is needed to maintain growth. As your base gets bigger, you need to invest more into growth just to maintain your current rate. That means running more experiments which means more people and infrastructure.
3. The third mistake is thinking that growth is everyones job. In the early days “growth” is typically distributed across a small team, just like customer support is. But as the team grows you need to dedicate people/teams to thinking about growth as their full time job. At a certain size when something is everyones job, it is no ones job. The responsibility gets diffused across too many people.
Want to hear more from Brian? Tickets to StartCon are open!
