The Joy and Magic Of Organic Growth ...

Happy Friday.

Nothing makes me happier than organic growth. I get so excited when a founder experiences that joy.

In our current fund 4, I am seeing so many cases of it recently and it is fun to watch.

All day everyday Beehiiv is benefitting from organic growth as customers delight in the use of the product and express their happiness in social channels.

At Grass Clippings, Tik Tokkers, Instagrammers and YouTubers are snapping photos and sharing them and the physical course has created a huge buzz for our digital/software idea of building a league and high stakes golf events. Just today we announced the Grass Clippings Open in partnership with Bleacher Report. This is all hustle on top of product market fit…not paid acquisition. From organic growth come leaner cap tables and inbound market and partnership opportunities that are more accretive.

Just yesterday, Daniel, the PunchUp founder I have written about here recently, texted me this clip of Joe Rogan and his guest Sam Morril talking about the company and product. There is no money you could pay that would be better than that organic shoutout.

The ZIRP and Social/Mobile Web era of 2010-2021 was filled with tales of ‘growth hacking’.

Every ex-Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter employee started a VC firm or a fresh startup extolling their magical growth hacking formulas that would help them or their portfolio companies grow. It was a big lie, now being told on podcasts by the same people.

Any honest venture capitalist or founder would tell you the products themselves were the growth hack and while certain few people are gifted at marketing and growth, the real hack of the era was free money and abundant mispriced social inventory.

I have been writing here the last year that marketing and sales skills are going to be the real superpower of the next winning companies. That will be a lot more expensive and time consuming than the previous era, but from this will come much stronger companies. I assume they will just take much longer.

It is why we have been so valuation conscious the last four years and remain so.

The good news is that founders are listening.

In the sloppy era we came through, I noticed so many companies still paying for PR (public relations). It makes my blood boil when I see this expense at any startup.

I believe in pay to play for PR in certain circumstances, but paying PR firms on retainer is ridiculous.

The right product at the right time with the right sized cap table is still the best growth hack to success.