A different approach, and a different type of client, and a genuine product/market fit
The great news is that our new framework and tools work, and much more importantly it works in a predictable and repeatable way. It’s not showy but it’s safe and it delivers growth by focusing activity on the most critical business areas for right now. We now call ourselves a startup growth consultancy because it encompasses both the combination of Brainwork and Legwork that is needed to deliver success, whether that’s with short term ‘hacks’ or long term strategic planning. The consequence of this is that we will no longer run growth projects in the ways we worked before. Even when we’re asked to. And that’s something that happens quite a lot!
We’re still approached by founders every week saying, “we’re ready to scale!” and asking us to jump straight into A/B testing and accelerating their activity. Whereas previously we would have said yes, these days we politely decline to take on those projects on the basis that we do not see a great success rate with that process. We explain that we now have a different process that we know will succeed and we will only take on cases that we are confident we can make work.
What we’re finding as a result of this is that the type of businesses that we’re engaging with now have a much better cultural fit. The founders and leadership teams who are attracted by our approach are those who understand the need to prioritise stability and correct decision making, and as such are much better partners for us.
These kinds of businesses are much better at withstanding the excitements and anxieties of startup life and at maintaining the right direction through it all. So we have found that by bringing an environment for success with us into our client relationships, we have received an environment for success in return.
The upshot of all of this is that by dialling in on customer jobs-to-be-done and learning about the real pain points that startups are facing, we have now elevated our product/market fit. We learned that growth marketing in isolation can not solve the pain points of our market, we adapted our thought processes and our approach and figured out how to do it better.
So this is who we are now. We’re not a growth hacking agency, we’re a startup growth consultancy for whom Brainwork is as critical as Legwork. We know the process we need to follow to make startup growth work and so we follow it, ignoring anything that may distract from impact or take away control. As such, we’re not for everyone and that’s ok.