Welcome Edition #1- WTF is ‘The Growth Spurt’? 🤯
Mathushah Satheesan
Welcome to The Growth Spurt, a fortnightly newsletter with curated insights that will challenge your thinking as an aspiring creator or a founder.
Read time: 4-5 mins
Today at a Glance:
Storytime: WTF is ‘The Growth Spurt’
Question: ‘Do I have to reinvent the wheel to produce something of value?’
Quote: Stress-testing your opinions is a new way.
Tweet: TikTok musicians are genius marketers.
Time to confess: How much have you grown since high school?
Were you the popular girl or the geeky kid? Were you a late bloomer or an early peaker?
How much have you grown since high school?
Just like a business, we all have our own unique seasons and growth rates in our lives. Success comes from tapping into our best seasons and riding out the waves.
That is what The Growth Spurt is all about.
Storytime!
Let me introduce you to 18 year old me- who received a generous $500 by my folks to start my jewellery business- a passion project. I got excited. I had my stock, merchandise photos and a Facebook page.
I wanted fast growth. I put $100 everyday for a week on Facebook Ads to expand my reach.
In 5 days- I reached hundreds of people who had interest but no conversion.
$500 lost and 0 traction. Young, dumb and broke.
It was a painful moment but I realised something profound.
#Rule 1 Retention > Acquisition
After 7 years of hands-on marketing experience (since starting my jewellery business at 18), with 2 years focusing on growth marketing in D2C scaleups, I've realized that in the ever-changing business world, growth marketing shines as the BEST approach.
Why this, why now? 🕒
In this fast paced world that prioritise fast growth, I believe slow iterated growth is pivotal in this unstable, uncertain market conditions.
There are so many myths about growth marketing out there - and I want to use this platform to dispel it and help founders achieve their vision, along the way.
Question for the day:
‘Do I have to reinvent the wheel to produce something of value?’🤔
As we read in most business books, anything that is of value often comes with a point of differentiation.
Hence, when I was a budding founder, I used to wonder - ‘Do I have to reinvent the wheel?’
Upon reflection, I found a pattern. No big success came out of vacuum.
‘’Good artists copy, great artists, steal"- Pablo Picasso’’
Stealing like an artist sounded like a crime to me.
It challenged my thinking that success and creation come, not from unique novel ideas but from building upon existing ideas.
Source: Steal Like An Artist- Austin Kleon
2 classic businesses that ‘stole like an artist’ and made it big 📈
Apple:
Apple didn't invent the concept of smartphones.
Apple took existing ideas from phones, touchscreens, and app stores and integrated them into one sleek interface.
They made phones user-friendly, which propelled the entire business. Nothing more, nothing less.
Airbnb:
Similarly, Airbnb didn't invent the concept of short-term accommodation.
Traditional hotels and hostels existed long ago.
Airbnb simply took the concept of lodging and leveraged the sharing economy between individuals.
Adding a personalised experience to an existing hospitality industry propelled its success.
‘‘Cool…But what does this mean for me or my business?’’👀
If you are an aspiring creative/founder, don’t get lost in the process of finding a novel solution or a value proposition.
Build upon an existing idea to make the value of a product even better.
Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Steal like an artist.
It sounds simple, but I have met many founders, scratching their head- trying to come up with something completely new. And I am guilty of that mistake too.
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POLL
Are you guilty of trying to reinvent the wheel?
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Quote🔥
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Stress-testing opposing ideas, and creating goals, and anti-goals when making a critical decision is fundamental to success.
Tweet✨
Takeaway: The power of storytelling will never die.
Refer Friends & Help Us Grow the Tribe
My Personal Growth Spurt- my first canyoning adventure when I abseiled a 30m drop through a waterfall
Share the Growth Spurt
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How are you vibin’ today?😎
Some days we feel like Barbie, and the other days more like Oppenheimer. How are you feeling today?
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Posted Aug 30, 2023
Strategising and helping with copywriting on substack newsletter that led to 60% open rates and 50 subscribers with one article
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