Seed
Find the channel.
There are paying customers and a price. Nobody knows yet which channel can be a channel. Growth Partner answers that in ninety days with a record, not a deck.
- Home
- Who it’s for
Who it’s for
Startups, and the companies that have outgrown the label.
Startups are the companies we are built around. The same work fits a bootstrapped company, a team that no longer calls itself a startup, and a software company selling into a specific trade, when the revenue line and the buyer are already real. Ninety days, one channel, the owner of the number in the room: that pace is the startup pace, and it is the pace for everyone else too.
- B2B software
- Vertical software
- Fintech
- AI and developer tools
- Consumer and subscription
- Marketplaces
- Operating companies past the label
Stages
Seed to Series B, bootstrapped, and past the label.
Series A
Make it repeatable.
Something works but it depends on a founder’s calendar. We take one channel, instrument it, and make cost per qualified lead a number the board can read.
Series B, bootstrapped, and beyond
Add a channel without adding noise.
The team is real and the first channel is saturating. We earn the second one on the record. A bootstrapped company, or one that stopped using the word startup years ago, is the same work when the test below holds.
The test
Four things. All of them.
The revenue line is evidence that a channel can be judged. It is not a velvet rope. Below it, ninety days of paid media usually measures noise, and the fee plus the media is a large share of the company.
A fit if
- A product or offer people already pay for
- A buyer you can describe, including who you turn away
- About $1 million in annual revenue, or paying customers and a price on a path to it inside a year
- A person who can act on a lead or a signup inside the week
- A media budget of a few thousand dollars a month, and the fee
- Willingness to decide on qualified pipeline or paid customers, not impressions
Not yet if
- There is no product, or no one outside the company has paid for it
- Revenue well below that, and no path that already has paying customers on it
- Nobody owns the pipeline: the ask is a new site and a managed ad account, with no one to act on a lead
- You want brand, content volume, or a rebrand rather than a channel
- The ask is a guarantee before any spend
When the fit fails, we say so on the first call and point you somewhere good. That is a service, not a status.
Projecting to it
What a projection has to contain.
The channel has to be judgeable against a revenue line. For most companies that is about $1 million a year, already in the books or on a plan that already has paying customers. “About” is deliberate. A plan is a projection when it has all three of these.
Paying customers already
Or a live product people outside the company use and pay for. A waitlist fails.
A price
Or the range the company will actually charge.
A path inside twelve months
Naming the assumptions: price, close rate or conversion to paid, and how many customers that implies. Walked through on the call. A pitch deck is not a path.
Company types
The same four practices. What changes is the definition of qualified.
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02
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B2B software
Sales-led or product-led, including vertical software and fintech. The qualified lead is a company and a role, and the number is pipeline with the source attached.
AI and developer tools
Buyers who read the docs first. Search on the problem and the integration, a page that shows the product, and a signup that is judged by activation.
Consumer and marketplaces
Signups, activation, and the first paid action, by cohort. Creative is most of the experiment, and on a marketplace the side that pays you is the side that is judged.
Questions
About fit.
If yours is not here, ask. We answer plainly, including when the answer is that this is not the right engagement.
What has to be true for this to fit?
Four things. A product or offer people already pay for. A buyer you can describe, including who you turn away. Revenue at about $1 million, or a projection with paying customers already on it. A person who can act on a lead or a signup inside the week. A company that wants a new site and a managed ad account, with nobody owning the pipeline, fails the test, and we will say so.
Is there a revenue minimum?
The channel has to be judgeable against a revenue line. For most companies that is about $1 million a year, in the books or on a plan you can walk through: paying customers, a price, and the number of customers that gets you there inside a year. If the plan is a deck and nobody outside the company has paid, ninety days will measure noise, and we will say so.
We are pre-launch. Can you help?
Not with Growth Partner. Paid media for a product nobody has paid for mostly measures the page. Come back when there are paying customers and a price. We will say what the first channel would be then.
We are product-led. Is this still relevant?
Yes. The definitions change: qualified signup, activation, first paid action, by cohort. The channel, the experiment, and the record work the same way.
We already have a growth team.
Then we are the extra pair of senior hands on one channel, with the record to match. We own the channel and the experiment; your team owns the rest. Lines are written in the brief.
We stopped calling ourselves a startup years ago.
Then the stage label does not matter and the test does. A bootstrapped company, a team past Series A adding a channel, a software company selling into clinics, logistics, or a trade: it is the same work when the revenue line and the buyer are already real.