101 Growth Tactics
The growth playbook for ambitious founders, sales, and marketing leaders at high-growth startups.
27 plays live · growing to 101+
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How to use this startup marketing playbook
This playbook isn’t meant to be read cover to cover. It’s more like a Swiss Army knife: something you flip open when you need it most. A few things to keep in mind:
- 01
Not every play is for everyone. Some of these are scrappy, $0-budget hacks for bootstrapped founders. Others are enterprise-grade go-to-market plays that require a sales team and multi-million dollar runway. But almost every tactic contains a principle you can extract, adapt, and apply to your business.
- 02
Jump around. You don’t need to read this in order. Open any play, skim for 3 minutes, and walk away with something actionable. The filters at the bottom of your screen sort by topic, business type, and quick wins.
- 03
Some plays are pure psychology. Some are intentionally ambiguous because the mindset or strategy is what matters most. Others go deep into execution because missing a single step can kill the results.
- 04
Ideas are cheap. Execution is everything. If you read this and never take action, I’ve failed you. This playbook is designed to spark action, not just inspiration. Pick 1–2 plays. Test them. Iterate. That’s where the real growth happens.
- 05
You only need 2–3 channels humming to build a $100M+ business. The trick is finding which ones scale. And to find them, you’ve got to throw darts, sometimes a lot of darts. We call this “Marketing Portfolio Theory”, inspired by the Modern Portfolio Theory of American economist Harry Markowitz.
Why trust this playbook
Over the last 10 years, I’ve documented hundreds of scrappy, unconventional tactics that don’t show up in marketing textbooks. I’ve tested a majority of them firsthand, helping companies scale fast, raise capital, and get acquired. That journey has included:
Selling my company to the co-founder of NASDAQ:TTWO at 22 years old
Founding a marketing app used by Fortune 1000s
Fractional CMO for a B2B SaaS that has generated well over $100M in revenue
Landing influencer deals, without paying a dime, with hundreds of A-list celebrities, athletes, and musicians
Spearheading GTM strategy, the marketing engine, and the sales process for a pre-revenue startup that generated well over $100M in sales pipeline in our first 12 months together
Leading growth for startups that went on to raise tens of millions of dollars
Scaling startups from $0 to a 7-figure run rate in under 3 months
Working with clients in 50+ unique industries, and the pattern recognition that comes from seeing how different tactics work in different environments
Attending Y Combinator Startup School in 2019-2020
Acting as CMO for a pre-revenue fintech, repositioning the product and forging 50+ partnerships with neobanks
Taking direct-to-consumer brands from invisible to #1 in their category
Connecting with Tier 1 VC, PE, and accelerator groups including SoftBank, Y Combinator, Techstars, and more
Helping the largest childcare franchise decrease customer acquisition cost by 55%
CMO for startups that raised at their desired valuation from top-tier VCs
Seeding two-sided marketplaces in both MarTech and FinTech, solving the chicken-and-egg problem
And hundreds more
Let’s dive in. Pick a play
No plays match that combination yet. More are on the way.
Newsletter Replies: The 1% Move That Starts High-Leverage Conversations
Almost nobody replies to newsletters. A thoughtful reply lands in a warm inbox with near 100% read rates and starts real relationships with founders and creators.
Build in Public: Turn Transparency into Distribution
Share the journey, the messy middle, and the failures. Building in public turns the work you are already doing into marketing that compounds attention and trust.
Skip the Sales Process: Just Show Up and Install It
Skip the pitch and onboard the prospect on the spot. Stripe's Patrick Collison installed Stripe on founders' laptops in person, and the momentum closed the deal.
Recurring Revenue, Even in Weird Places
Even one-off industries can bake in subscriptions. Eight Sleep added a $200/year sleep subscription to mattress sales; agencies add monthly hosting and support plans.
Influence the Circle, Not the Celebrity: The Posse Play
Gift the entourage first: stylists, photographers, agents. When the crew wears your product, the A-lister follows. That's how we got Wiz Khalifa in our gear.
Manufacturing Popularity: Engineer Demand Before You Have It
Red Bull stuffed nightclub trash bins with empty cans to look popular before they were. Create signals that look like demand and the crowd follows them.
Community Affiliates as GTM: Turn Customers Into Your Sales Team
LiveOuter turned buyers into Neighborhood Showroom Hosts who earn $20 per visit showing furniture in their own backyard. Your customers can be your sales team.
Craigslist Blitz: Own Page One of Every Major City
Craigslist still pulls 250 million visits a month across 700+ cities. Write a compelling post, then automate distribution to every major city with a script or VA.
Validate Before You Build
Ask if they'd pay before you build. Send a Stripe link on every yes: pre-sales, validation, and funding in one move. That's how I got my first 15 customers.
The Line Trick: Manufacture Hype Like It's Supreme
Get 20+ people to line up outside your new storefront like it's a Supreme drop. Humans follow crowds: when people see a line, they assume it's worth waiting for.
Trend Hijacking: Drop Viral Comments on Trending Niche Videos
When a video in your niche blows up, the comment section is prime real estate. A sharp top comment rides the wave: millions of impressions without ad spend.
Creative Referral Rewards: Make It a Gift, Not a Gimmick
Referred customers are 25% more profitable and 18% more likely to stay. Design referral rewards that feel like a gift and your customers become your sales team.
Swag That Sells For You
A $50 hoodie outlives $50 of ad spend by years. Give high-quality branded gear to top customers and partners and turn them into walking ambassadors.
The "Refer 3" Growth Loop: Use Urgency and Exclusivity to Drive Word of Mouth
Ask new users to refer 3 others to unlock speed or status. Nathan Latka used it to turn podcast guests into distribution. Social capital becomes growth.
Newsletter as a Growth Engine
Your newsletter is the seed for 10-30 pieces of content across every platform. Use it to build middle-of-funnel trust and stay top of mind until timing is right.
Personalized Email at Scale: Hyper-Personalization + Automation
Email used to be personal or scalable, never both. With Clay and AI agents you can send prompt-driven, data-aware emails that feel 1:1 to thousands of contacts.
Grass Roots Community Engagement, Meet Automation
Set post notifications for 100 key opinion leaders. When they post, drop a high-signal comment and ride their momentum. Free attention from the right people.
Turn Passive Followers into Active Pipeline
A new follower is a micro-signal of interest. Send a quick, personal DM instead of letting it sit cold and watch how often it turns into a real conversation.
Custom Interviewing: The Trojan Horse Discovery Calls
Reach out to your target buyers as the expert, not the prospect. A 15-minute brain-pick call yields voice-of-customer intel, warm intros, and pre-sales.
Go Live or Get Left Behind
Live shopping drove over $800 billion in sales in China in 2024. Platforms like Whatnot and TikTok Shop are bringing it to the U.S., and early brands win big.
Turn Competitor Rage Into Revenue
Scrape your competitors' 1-star reviews on Google, Yelp, G2, and Capterra, enrich the contacts, and pitch a better alternative to people already complaining.
Add the Boujee SKU
Someone wants to buy the most expensive thing you offer, just to say they did. Add a luxury SKU, white-glove tier, or high-ticket bundle and let them.
Lamborghini Pizza: The Most Legendary College Campus Launch Ever
Push for Pizza wrapped a leased Lamborghini in their branding, hit college campuses, and traded free slices for downloads. Tens of thousands installed the app.
Be Everywhere, All at Once: Omni-Channel Content Distribution
One piece of content should become 15-20. Turn a LinkedIn post into tweets, Reels, carousels, Stories, and podcast clips to multiply your surface area online.
Smart Mailers with Zillow: Turn New Home Sales into a Targeting Goldmine
Newly sold homes are a buying-intent goldmine. Scrape Zillow or Redfin sold data and hit new homeowners with targeted mailers in their first 6-18 months.
AI Overview: The Future of SEO
AI search is rewriting discovery. If your brand doesn't show up in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, or Claude answers, you don't exist to the next wave of buyers.
Festival Swag Drop: Stickers, Tees, and QR Codes
Print bold stickers, pins, hats, or tees with a QR code to your site and hand them out at festivals. The right design turns your customer into the ad.
The playbook keeps growing
Get new plays as they ship.
The playbook is growing to 101+ tactics. One email when new plays drop. No pitch, just plays.
You’re in. New plays will find you.