Going from founder-led sales to team-led sales is one of the most pivotal moments in your startup journey.
Some founders can’t wait to delegate sales. To others the startup is their baby, so this process can feel like outsourcing the feeding of that child. But if you want your company to grow up big and strong, it must be done.
And a robust go-to-market (GTM) strategy, powered by a startup growth engine, is the best way to do it.
What is a startup growth engine?
A startup growth engine is a systematic approach to growing your new company. The goal: build the scalable, repeatable processes that fuel growth.
Growth engines encompass the key startup functions of product, marketing, sales and customer success, optimising each and pointing all in the same direction. Here are the four levers of your growth engine:
Product
A startup growth engine will outline and roadmap the vision, goals and key milestones of your product strategy, and will help you to prioritise the most impactful features. It will assist with positioning and messaging by gathering feedback and iterating your product toward the wants and needs of your target audience.
Example: Dropbox's referral program
Dropbox's growth engine focused heavily on product-led growth. They implemented a referral program that gave users extra free storage space for inviting friends. This feature was baked directly into the product, making it easy for users to share and invite others. The result was explosive viral growth, with Dropbox going from 100,000 to 4 million users in just 15 months. (source)
Marketing
The growth engine will guide you on effectively building brand awareness through marketing and PR efforts, and by positioning you as a thought leader and/or disruptor. It will guide you on implementing inbound and outbound marketing strategies to generate leads, through SEO, PPC, email, content and more.
Example: HubSpot's inbound marketing strategy
HubSpot's growth engine was built on inbound marketing. They created valuable content, tools and resources that attracted potential customers to their website. This included blog posts, ebooks, webinars and free tools like Website Grader. By providing value upfront, HubSpot positioned itself as a thought leader and generated a steady stream of leads for its sales team.
Sales
Your startup growth engine will help you develop a structured sales process, defining key stages of the sales funnel to effectively guide prospects through it. The engine will also guide you on training your sales team, ensuring they understand both your product and the target market, and providing them with the tools they need to succeed.
Example: Salesforce's land-and-expand strategy
Salesforce's growth engine included a "land-and-expand" sales strategy. They would start by selling to a small team within a company, then gradually expand to other departments. This approach, combined with their cloud-based model, allowed them to grow rapidly within organisations. Their sales team was trained to identify expansion opportunities and upsell additional products and services.
Customer growth
The faster customers see value from your offering, the more likely they are to be hooked. Your growth engine can help you to create a simple, seamless onboarding process that does just that, and retains those customers to minimise churn and maximise lifetime value.
Example: Slack's focus on user activation
Slack's growth engine placed heavy emphasis on user activation and engagement. They created a smooth onboarding process that guided new users through key features. They also implemented features like integrations with other tools and customisable notifications to increase stickiness. This focus on activation and engagement helped Slack grow from 0 to $4 billion in 4 years.
How to build your go-to-market engine
A go-to-market engine is exactly that: a collection of moving parts built to drive your company forward. So let’s grab some tools.
Be customer-centric
Your go-to-market execution must align with the needs and wants of your customers. They’ll only bite if you solve a problem, address a need or create a desire. The customer must be placed at the centre of every product, marketing, sales and customer success effort. If you think you know better than your target audience, they’ll quickly prove you wrong.
All other aspects of growth engine building flow on from this theme.
Example: Airbnb's customer-centric approach
Airbnb's growth engine was built on a deep understanding of both hosts and guests. They continually gathered feedback and made improvements to their platform based on user needs. For instance, they introduced professional photography services for hosts after realising that better photos led to more bookings.
Align with buying preferences
Are your target customers self-serve buyers? Do they appreciate a high-touch sales process? Do they sit somewhere in between?
Map out the customer journey, then design your GTM strategy to align with these preferences. For self-service customers, for example, you might invest in systems and strategies that let them guide their own discovery, testing and purchasing of your product.
Example: Atlassian's low-touch sales model
Atlassian built its growth engine around a low-touch, self-serve sales model. They focused on creating great products with transparent pricing, extensive documentation and free trials. This approach allowed them to scale rapidly without a large sales team, growing to over $100 million in revenue before hiring their first sales rep (source).
Craft a seamless buyer journey
Like moving through the gears of an F1 car, a customer’s growth engine-powered transition through marketing, sales and customer success touchpoints should be perfectly smooth while maintaining forward thrust.
It should also aim to inspire customer loyalty by offering a consistent experience – after that first purchase the customer should know what they’re going to get. Seamless buyer journeys can be powered by tracking interactions, automating follow-ups and developing personalised content.
Example: Amazon's one-click ordering
Amazon's growth engine includes a relentless focus on reducing friction in the buying process. Their patented one-click ordering system is a prime example of creating a seamless buyer journey. By storing customer information and allowing purchases with a single click, Amazon significantly increased conversion rates and customer satisfaction.
Personalise with data
The modern customer expects ultra-personalised experiences, so you need to deliver them.
Implement a CRM system to capture as much customer data as possible: demographics, interactions, preferences and more. Draw insights from that information to tailor content, marketing messages and sales pitches to individuals, describing specific pain points and using language that resonates.
Example: Netflix's recommendation engine
Netflix's growth engine is powered by its sophisticated recommendation system. By analysing viewing habits, ratings and other data points, Netflix can offer highly personalised content recommendations. This personalisation increases engagement and reduces churn, contributing significantly to Netflix's growth and retention.
Be where your customers are
A multi-channel approach should form a key cog in your growth engine. Think beyond digital marketing channels, because traditional advertising, networking, industry events and guerilla marketing have their place too.
But while the channels might differ, the messaging should remain consistent – if personalised – as startups must slowly build awareness, familiarity and trust.
Example: Uber's city-by-city expansion strategy
Uber's growth engine included a focused, city-by-city expansion strategy. They would enter a new market with a targeted mix of digital marketing, outdoor advertising, and grassroots efforts like partnering with local events. This multi-channel approach allowed them to quickly build awareness and trust in each new market.
Communicate value
Your marketing and sales teams need to speak your customers’ language and address their pain points. So your growth engine should help you and your team develop a deep understanding of your value proposition.
It will also help you to communicate that value in ways that resonate with your audience at every stage of their journey with you.
Example: Stripe's developer-first approach
Stripe's growth engine was built on a deep understanding of their target audience: developers. They communicated their value by focusing on the simplicity and power of their API, providing extensive documentation, and offering support through channels developers prefer, like Stack Overflow. This developer-first approach helped Stripe become the go-to payment solution for many tech companies.
Implement feedback loops
Your growth engine should feature mechanisms for sharing customer feedback and insights. Your product, marketing, sales and customer success teams should have easy access to the data they need. They should know how to use that data to optimise and enhance the customer experience, and increase the chances of customer success.
Ultimately customer success is company success. When you focus on customer success you increase conversions and loyalty, reduce churn, and create opportunities for upselling and cross-selling.
Example: Zoom's rapid iteration based on user feedback
Zoom's growth engine included tight feedback loops between users and the product team. They regularly collected and acted on user feedback, rapidly iterating their product to meet user needs. This approach allowed them to quickly add features like virtual backgrounds and security enhancements, contributing to their explosive growth during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Overwhelmed? Don’t be.
The transition from founder-led sales to team-led sales can feel daunting, particularly if you haven’t navigated it before. But it needn’t be. The best founders see it as the opportunity that it is: the obvious next step on the journey to success.
Successful transitions are driven by a high performance growth engine that makes the process simpler, smoother and more likely to succeed. And successful growth engines are built by those who have done it all before.
Which is where we come in.
Shepherd: on-demand talent for growth-focused startups
At Shepherd we connect startups with fractional leaders who bring deep experience in building growth engines.
We inject the on-demand skills, experience and talent you need to turbocharge your growth, and we offer this high-end leadership on start-up friendly terms that can be customised to your needs.
Want to learn more? Download our FREE eBook "Fractional Hiring 101: A Complete Guide to On-Demand Leadership for Startups", or book a free 30-minute consultation with our founders.
