How 4 Startups Broke the Rules to Win

Deep customer insight can justify persistence during challenging times.

"When he spoke to these customers... the problems that they wanted to solve were real problems... What was happening is that often the initial solution wasn’t really clicking."

• Engage with customers to understand their pain points.
• Validating the problem can sustain you through slow growth periods.
• Adjust your solution based on direct customer feedback.

Prioritizing a metric closely tied to your growth strategy can be transformative.

"Fundamentally, the only way that this startup would really work out is if he ended up having incredible word of mouth... he decided that he needed to make his entire business strictly about NPS."

• Identify the metric most aligned with your growth model.
• Focusing on NPS helped Polarsteps drive organic user acquisition.
• A singular focus can streamline efforts and amplify results.

Consistency can be more effective than waiting for a sudden breakthrough.

"I think that’s very common, like, I think many founders are kind of looking for that viral moment... In my experience, it rarely works that way. It’s actually more of a consistency story."

• Don't rely on sudden viral events for growth.
• Regular, incremental progress builds a stronger foundation.
• Focus on delivering consistent value to users.

Knowing when to align with best practices and when to break the mold is vital for startups.

"You have to decide as a founder... where you’re going to follow the road of best practice and where you’re going to intentionally, purposefully do something very different, be unconventional, because that’s what’s best for you."

• Assess your unique situation and decide which norms to follow or break.
• Unconventional strategies can lead to a competitive advantage.
• Success often comes from tailoring approaches to your specific context.

Early stages may show slow growth, but persistence can lead to substantial success.

"Six months after that, they just have 3 customers. So a year into this venture, Jobber, you have 3 customers. It’s just insanely slow... Now you fast forward, they’re over $100 million in ARR."

• Early slow growth isn't always indicative of future success.
• Persevere if you're solving a genuine problem customers care about.
• Consistent effort and belief can lead to significant scale over time.

Ensuring everyone focuses on the same key metric drives alignment and progress.

"I also think having this one thing that everybody is responsible for and looking at every single day, there's just a lot of power to that in terms of alignment."

• Select a North Star metric that matters most to your business.
• Get your team and investors to align on it to prevent misaligned expectations.
• Polarsteps avoided distractions by focusing on NPS across all stakeholders.

Pursuing what you love can open doors to new opportunities and innovative ideas.

"There's power to becoming really great at something, there's power to going deep on something you really care about. And what can come out of that is really hard to see at the time."

• Engage deeply in work you enjoy to spot unique opportunities.
• Yoni from Public.com returned to product design and founded a successful company.
• Mastering your craft can lead to innovative solutions.

Founders often look for a 'silver bullet' to drive growth, but consistent improvement might be the key.

"There really oftentimes is no silver bullet. There might not even be a point of looking for a silver bullet, but there is very much a point in making sure the problem you're solving is a top-of-mind problem and then making your product 1% better every day."

• Focus on solving a top-of-mind problem.
• Consistent, incremental improvements lead to compounding growth.
• Jobber's founders grew from 3 customers to over $100 million ARR by consistent effort.

Aligning your team and stakeholders on one key metric can drive significant growth.

"He built his entire business about that, and he talked about the importance of not just being super maniacal about it and focusing exclusively on that, but also of getting all stakeholders fully aligned on it."

• Choose one key metric that drives your business forward.
• Polarsteps focused on NPS to drive word of mouth.
• Align your team and investors on this metric for consistent growth.

Many founders believe they need to be in Silicon Valley to succeed, but that's not always the case.

"You can actually build massive companies, not just outside of the valley, but outside of second-tier cities, you know like in third-tier cities, because the reality is like, what really matters again isn't where you're building, it's what you're building, it's how you're building, it's how you're executing."

• Building success isn't limited by location.
• Jeff from SkipTheDishes started in Saskatoon and sold for $200 million.
• Focus on execution and product, regardless of where you are.