Essays

Deeply considered essays on startups and growth.

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  1. 01

    Act 2

    Why most startups never ship a second product

  2. 02

    Word of Agents

    Word of mouth when the mouths disappear

  3. 03

    Who Owns Pricing?

    Your engineers. They shouldn't.

  4. 04

    The Aha Moment

    The most misunderstood concept in growth

  5. 05

    What Made You Cancel?

    You're not asking. You should.

  6. 06

    There's an agency for that

    AI is breaking in-house marketing

  7. 07

    Mastering Willingness to Pay

    The most valuable conversations you'll ever have

  8. 08

    Hiring is Basically Growth

    A framework for filling your hardest roles

  9. 09

    Stop Hiring People ⚠️

    Focus on the problem. Then the role. Then the person.

  10. 10

    To Free or Not To Free

    At last, a clear framework on how to choose between freemium, free trial, or paid-only

  11. 11

    How to Hire Growth

    What I've learned in over a decade of hiring growth PMs, marketers, and generalists about how to stop wasting time and find a "hell yes"

  12. 12

    The Ultimate List Of Referral Optimizations 🎁

    Over 50 referral optimizations in one crisp list

  13. 13

    SEO Is Dead. Long Live GEO.

    How to win in the era of LLMs, AI Overviews, and GEO — before your traffic disappears

  14. 14

    The Waitlist Delusion

    Waitlist ≠ Growth

  15. 15

    Good Startup Communication

    What great teams get right

  16. 16

    How Did You Hear About Us?

    The most useful data — that you're not gathering

  17. 17

    Obsessing Over Onboarding for 10+ Years

    The playbooks behind Superhuman's norm-shattering onboarding

  18. 18

    The Two Kinds Of Growth You Can Drive

    Are you Team Burj or Team Tide?

  19. 19

    Growth Interview Red Flags 🚩

    What to watch out for if you're landing a growth role

  20. 20

    Taste → Resonance

    Practical advice on developing taste in pursuit of resonance

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