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Who should you know about when it comes to startup growth? Who should you be following for the latest in growth tips? Which growth experts regularly deliver valuable, actionable content to their followers? If these questions resonate, this article is for you.

We’ve looked far and wide to find the very best in startup growth. We’ve pulled a collection of well-known startup growth leaders who have been there and done it. Everyone in this list has been part of startups that have rapidly scaled. Some have synthesised their knowledge into well regarded books, some have built their own fractional CMO services others work purely as advisors.

Matt Lerner

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewlerner/ Website - https://www.systm.co/about-ma...

Selecting the right growth agency for your startup can make or break your startup. The wrong pick can lead to months of pain and wasted resources. The right selection can rocket your startup through the rungs of growth.

Over the years, I have run an agency and worked with dozens of agencies. I’ve pretty much seen it all when it comes to marketing service companies. It’s also something I get asked a lot when speaking with founders, how do you find the right agency for your startup?

So, I have written my key criteria every startup founder should consider when researching, speaking to and selecting their next growth agency.

Startup-specific experience When hiring a startup growth agency, make sure the agency specialises in startup growth. It ...

What if one day we woke up and all of the things we set out to do in life were done? Would we be happy or sad?

This actually happened to me in the past year, and it's been freaking me out! But it's also been a cause for a ton of reflection.

As Founders, we set a ton of goals for ourselves and our startups — obviously. We work tirelessly toward those goals with the anticipation that once we accomplish them, something magical will happen.

What we rarely consider is what happens on the other side of these goals once we've crossed the finish line.

In Case You Missed It

We Need a Strict Definition of Personal Success Every moment we spend pursuing an undefined goal is a complete waste of time — especially personal goals.

Why No One Tells Founde...

How do we become confident Founders when none of us have ever done this before?

As a startup CEO for over 30 years, I can tell you I have the confidence now, but when I was starting at 19... not even close. I was so out of my depth I was terrified to even tell people I was a CEO for fear they would laugh at me. And they often did.

Back then, I thought confidence was something certain people were just born with — like being tall or having good skin. Growing up, there were always those kids who seemed like they had it figured out. I assumed they had something I didn’t.

Years later I'd come to know those same supposedly confident people very well, and I'd learn a valuable lesson — no one is just "naturally confident." It all comes from experie...

What if college simply doesn't make sense for aspiring Founders — are we ready to sacrifice this sacred cow?

Last week I was having lunch with a very successful old friend who made over $100 million in his career. He wanted me to sit down and advise his 18-year-old son who had just graduated high school. The first thing he said was, "He's decided to skip college and go straight to starting his own company."

This is the first time I've heard a parent say that out loud, but I'm starting to think it certainly won't be the last.

My immediate gut reaction was going to be some defense of college, even though I dropped out as fast as I could to start my first company. But no matter how many points I sped through in my mind, I couldn't come up with...

What if our startup is only failing because we refuse to let it evolve?

There’s a moment in every Founder’s journey when nothing feels like it’s working. The product isn’t catching on. The sales aren’t converting. The market isn’t responding. And the creeping voice starts to whisper: “Maybe this just isn’t going to work.”

But what if it’s not the startup that’s failing — it's us?

What if we're the ones who are holding on too tightly to the original product or vision that we're preventing our startup from evolving into what it's meant to be?

The Myth of the Perfect Plan

Most of us fall in love with an idea before we’ve ever tested it. That’s how this whole thing starts. We get a flash of inspiration, we build the deck, and we convince oursel...

A year ago, on a random Tuesday afternoon, I was driving home from an appointment and called an old friend — someone I’ve known for years, a high-level exec with big responsibilities and serious sales goals.

I asked him what he was up to. He said, “I’m floating in my pool.” I laughed. I thought he was joking. It was 2pm... on a Tuesday! People like him (people like us) don’t do that.

So I asked him why. He paused, like he’d never really been asked that question before, and simply said, “It makes me happy.” That was it. No explanation, no excuse. Just a basic truth. And in that moment, it hit me: the fact that I didn’t know that answer was my problem, not his.

In Case You Missed It

We Need a Strict Definition of Personal Success Every moment...

What happens when the company we built no longer needs the version of us who built it?

At some point, I walked into a building as the CEO of a company with over 600 employees. I looked around and realized our HR department had more headcount than our whole company used to be, which made sense because we were managing $10 million a month in payroll.

Our focus had moved toward doubling headcount — again. We were recruiting top execs from Fortune 500 companies to help us plan an IPO. These were the same people who would have never even looked at my resume a few years earlier!

I was 26 years old at the time, and it was becoming evident to everyone, especially me, that this company had clearly outgrown me. It was time for me to go — but what do ...

Wil’s Personal Note: “Founders, I want you to give yourself 100x more credit than you probably are for doing what you’ve already done. If we lose perspective of our progress, we’ve already lost. We need that perspective to fuel our next big win.”

When I was living in Beverly Hills, I felt like a total loser. This isn't some lame setup to a humble brag, I'm telling you I never saw this coming and it pissed me off.

As a kid growing up without much, I never thought in a million years I'd be living in Beverly Hills, so my expectations heading into life were very low. But every morning when I would wake up, I would look across this sun-drenched canyon and see the most amazing houses you would ever see — literally billionaire homes.

Do you know...

Guessing is Not a Successful Sales Strategy. Create an ideal customer profile instead.

Think your product is “for everyone”? That’s cute. It’s also a ticket to early stage startup hell.

One of the top reasons startups fail (42%!) is building something nobody actually needs. Translation: they never clearly defined who their real customer was. In startup post-mortems you’ll hear the haunting refrain: “no market need.”

An Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is the antidote to that fate. It’s the crystal-clear picture of who truly needs what you’re selling. An ICP helps in qualifying leads effectively, ensuring your sales and marketing teams focus on the target audience.

Without it, you’re basically playing darts blindfolded and hoping for a bullseye...