30 Startup Growth Lessons I Learned Before 30

Scaling, failing and everything in-between

Hi there 👋,

I entered the fast-moving world of growth at twenty-one. I was young, naive and desperate to look older.

I spent more time thinking about what professional clothing to wear to a meeting than planning the agenda.

At twenty-six, I was hired as a Head of Growth for a successful startup.

Instead of being enough to satisfy my fear, the feeling only intensified.

I was hit with the biggest case of impostor syndrome.

Who am I to lead growth at a company already making six figures? What do I even know or have to offer them? Why the hell did they hire me?

I just turned thirty, and I now struggle with a different kind of impostor syndrome.

Am I too old not to have figured out the perfect formula to grow a company?

Do I really have to be on Tiktok?

It’s easy to forget everything I’ve learned about growth over the years. So today, let’s take a look at exactly that.

The 30 things I learned about growing startups and brands before 30.

1. There is no perfect growth formula

There isn’t even a perfect growth process or team. It truly varies per company.

There are, however, underlying principles and a general approach that will help you to figure things out quicker.

But we won’t find that magic X ingredient any time soon.

2. You will always be learning

If you’re not learning something, you’re likely dead.

Thirty is far from old, I know that. It’s more that the saying, “Your twenties are for figuring things out”, that worries me.

I don’t have everything figured out, far from it.

But I’m fortunate to have Growth buddies in their forties and fifties that show me how much more I have to learn, and they’re still learning with me.

3. Test fast

Time to rip off the bandaid: you don’t know what is going to work, that is the reality of it.

Too often, I’ve seen startups act like corporates in spending months trying to create the perfect ad or landing page, only to have it flop.

Don’t compare it to everything out there, or you’ll never be satisfied.

I recently shipped a landing page I wasn’t quite happy with yet. The irony? It converted 3x better than the product page.

Now it’s even better, but thankfully we got it live quickly, even if it wasn’t perfect yet.

4. Never underestimate the importance of operations

Both when I was the Head of Growth at Heights, and now that I’m the interim Head of Growth at Whole Supp, I’ve encountered the same struggle.

My biggest months of growth have been followed by the slowest.

Why? We ran out of stock!

Too enthusiastic about the growth, I forgot to check whether we had the stock to support it.

Now I work closely with Operations to share targets and expectations so we can align on stock repurchases and notify them if things are going faster than expected.

It’s all good selling a product, but you need to be able to ship that product as well!

5. Your product page and landing page should be different

No, they’re not “same same but different”, they’re DIFFERENT DIFFERENT DIFFERENT!

With landing pages, people don’t know your brand yet, they aren’t ready to buy, and you need to warm them up.

That is why landing pages often start with a header block introducing the proposition rather than a standard product block.

When I started in Growth, I’d send people to product pages (or worse, homepages or category pages… don’t judge me too harshly, please).

Now I always work with a separate landing page and you can’t begin to imagine the difference it makes.

6. Keep squeezing the lemon

I used to chase the high of a new win, a new channel or a growth opportunity.

Now I realise that when you find a win, you need to go hard on it and squeeze everything out of it first.

Just like a lemon, there is way more juice in it than you get on that initial squeeze 🍋.

Now when I find, say, a new first-purchase offer that is working well through ads, I don’t stop there.

Great, I’ll see how I can integrate it into every channel and test it further.

Get more wins out of that first win, as it’s just the starting point.

Check out the full article for 24 more lessons on growth!

Learn the other 24 lessons

Recommendation

In every edition of Growth Waves, I also share a related book, individual or newsletter to check out related to the week's topic.

Well, you won’t find anything more related than the full article, 30 Startup Growth Lessons I Learned Before 30.

Additionally, it’s worth going straight to the sources that helped me to learn all of this. Take a moment to check out my favourite growth resources of 2023.

Learn more

Maybe thirty isn’t the Doomsday I make it out to be. I even created a special pitch black RIP 20s cocktail for my birthday celebrations.

Maybe it’s a moment to appreciate how much I’ve learned through getting to interact and help over 200 brands.

It’s also a chance to appreciate how much more I have to learn, and how excited I am for that.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned about growth?

And if possible, what’s a lesson you’ve learned from me? I’d love to hear it!

Daphne