Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
Last year, a client approached me with what seemed like a dream project: build a complex two-sided marketplace platform with a substantial budget. It would have been one of my biggest projects to date. I said no.
Why? Because they had the classic startup disease - they wanted to build something scalable before proving they had anything worth scaling. They had zero customers, no validated demand, just an idea and enthusiasm for the latest no-code tools.
This interaction crystallized something I'd been observing across dozens of client projects: the most successful businesses I've worked with didn't start with scaleable tactics. They started with things that absolutely don't scale - manual processes, personal outreach, founder-led sales - and only automated once they found what actually worked.
Here's what you'll learn from my experience with clients who chose the non-scaleable path first:
Why I rejected a lucrative platform build and what I recommended instead
How one B2B SaaS client discovered their real growth engine wasn't ads but LinkedIn personal branding
The manual validation framework that saved multiple startups months of development
When to deliberately add friction to improve lead quality
How to identify which non-scaleable tactics to try first
If you're tempted to build automation before validation, this playbook might save you from an expensive mistake. Check out our SaaS growth strategies for more tactical insights.
Industry Reality
What Every Growth Article Preaches
Pick up any growth marketing article today and you'll see the same recycled advice: "Find scaleable acquisition channels." Build funnels, automate everything, optimize for viral coefficients, create self-service onboarding, implement referral loops.
The startup world has become obsessed with scale-first thinking. Growth hackers promise "10x your user acquisition," marketing automation platforms sell "set it and forget it" solutions, and no-code tools advertise "build your unicorn in a weekend."
Here's the conventional wisdom everyone follows:
Paid advertising: Set up Facebook and Google ads to acquire users at scale
Content marketing: Create SEO-optimized content to capture organic traffic
Product-led growth: Build viral loops and self-service onboarding
Marketing automation: Set up drip campaigns and nurture sequences
Partnership channels: Find scaleable distribution through integrations
This advice isn't wrong - these tactics work brilliantly once you know what works. The problem is timing. Most startups jump straight to scaleable tactics without understanding their customers, validating their market, or proving their product-market fit.
The result? Expensive ads that don't convert, content that nobody reads, viral features that nobody uses, and automation workflows that nurture unqualified leads. I've seen too many startups burn through runway optimizing funnels for products the market doesn't actually want.
What if I told you the most successful businesses I've worked with started with the exact opposite approach?
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
The marketplace project I mentioned wasn't unique. I get these requests regularly - founders excited about building platforms, marketplaces, or SaaS tools with complex automation from day one. They've read about successful companies and want to skip straight to the "scaleable" part.
This particular client came to me after hearing about AI and no-code tools. They weren't wrong about the technology - you absolutely can build complex platforms quickly now. But their core statement revealed the fundamental problem: "We want to see if our idea is worth pursuing."
They had no existing audience, no validated customer base, no proof of demand. Just an idea and enthusiasm for the latest tools. Sound familiar?
Instead of taking their money and building what they asked for, I gave them advice that initially shocked them: "If you're truly testing market demand, your MVP should take one day to build - not three months."
This philosophy comes from working with another B2B SaaS client where I discovered something that completely changed how I think about growth. Their acquisition strategy looked solid on paper - multiple channels, decent traffic, trial signups coming in. But their conversion funnel was broken.
After diving deep into their analytics, I found tons of "direct" conversions with no clear attribution. Most consultants would have started throwing money at paid ads or doubling down on SEO. Instead, I dug deeper and discovered the truth: a significant portion of quality leads were actually coming from the founder's personal branding on LinkedIn.
The "direct" conversions weren't really direct - they were people who had been following the founder's content, building trust over time, then typing the URL directly when they were ready to buy. This manual, non-scaleable approach was quietly outperforming all their "sophisticated" marketing channels.
That's when I realized most businesses are optimizing the wrong thing. They're trying to scale distribution before they understand what actually works.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Based on what I learned from that SaaS client and several others, here's the framework I now recommend to every startup before they touch any scaleable tactics:
Phase 1: Manual Market Validation (Week 1)
For the marketplace client, instead of building their platform, I suggested:
Create a simple landing page or Notion doc explaining the value proposition
Start manual outreach to potential users on both sides of the marketplace
Manually match supply and demand via email or WhatsApp
Only after proving demand, consider building automation
Your MVP should be your marketing and sales process, not your product. Distribution and validation come before development.
Phase 2: Founder-Led Content Strategy
After discovering the power of LinkedIn personal branding with my SaaS client, I restructured their entire acquisition approach:
Prioritized founder-led content on LinkedIn where trust was already being built
Created educational content that demonstrated expertise rather than pushing features
Focused on warming up leads before they ever hit the product
Shifted away from expensive paid channels that brought in cold, low-intent users
The key realization: Cold traffic needs significantly more nurturing before they're ready to commit to a SaaS product. It's better to have 100 warm leads than 1,000 cold ones.
Phase 3: Strategic Friction Addition
One of my most counterintuitive discoveries came from a B2B startup website revamp. They were getting inquiries but mostly from tire-kickers. Instead of reducing friction like every marketing blog suggests, I deliberately added more qualifying fields to their contact form:
Company type dropdown
Job title selection
Budget range indicator
Project timeline (immediate vs. future planning)
The result? Total volume stayed roughly the same, but quality transformed completely. Sales stopped wasting time on dead-end calls. Intentional friction acts as a self-selection mechanism.
Phase 4: Cross-Industry Solution Hunting
One breakthrough came when I was working on review collection for a B2B SaaS. I was struggling with manual outreach for testimonials when I remembered how aggressively effective Trustpilot's automated emails were in e-commerce.
So I did something obvious in hindsight but revolutionary at the time: I implemented the same Trustpilot process for my B2B client. The automated review collection that was battle-tested in e-commerce translated perfectly to B2B SaaS.
The lesson: Most businesses are so focused on their niche that they miss proven solutions from other industries. Sometimes the best strategies aren't in your competitor's playbook - they're in a completely different game.
Manual First
Always start with processes you can do by hand before building automation
Warm Leads
One warm, qualified lead beats ten cold prospects every time
Add Friction
Strategic friction filters for quality better than optimizing for volume
Cross-Industry
Look outside your niche for proven solutions that translate across sectors
The results from this non-scaleable approach consistently surprised clients:
The Marketplace Client: Instead of spending months building a platform, they validated their concept in two weeks using manual processes. They discovered the market existed but their initial value proposition was wrong. They pivoted to a simpler model and found product-market fit before writing a single line of code.
The B2B SaaS Client: By focusing on LinkedIn personal branding instead of expensive paid channels, they identified their real acquisition engine. The "direct" conversions that were actually attribution-masked social media referrals became their primary growth lever. They doubled down on founder-led content and saw higher-quality leads than any paid channel had delivered.
The Friction Experiment: Adding qualifying questions to contact forms didn't reduce lead volume but dramatically improved lead quality. Sales cycle shortened because prospects were pre-qualified. The team stopped wasting time on unqualified calls and could focus on serious buyers.
The Cross-Industry Solution: Implementing e-commerce review automation in B2B SaaS worked immediately. Customers started providing testimonials without manual outreach. The automated process generated more authentic reviews than manual requests ever had.
The common thread: Each approach required more manual work upfront but delivered better results than scaleable tactics would have.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
After implementing these approaches across multiple client projects, here are the key lessons learned:
1. Distribution beats product every time. The best product in the world is worthless if nobody knows about it. Start with manual distribution and customer development before building features.
2. Your first MVP should be your sales process, not your product. Prove people will pay for your solution manually before automating anything.
3. Warm beats cold at any volume. One person who knows your founder personally is worth more than 100 cold ad clicks. Focus on building relationships before optimizing funnels.
4. Strategic friction improves quality. Making it slightly harder to contact you often results in much better prospects. Not every optimization should reduce friction.
5. Look outside your industry for solutions. The best growth tactics are often hiding in plain sight in completely different sectors. E-commerce, B2B, and consumer apps can learn from each other.
6. Scale what works, not what sounds smart. Don't build automation around assumptions. First, manually prove what converts, then think about scaling it.
7. Founder involvement isn't a bug, it's a feature. In early stages, founder-led sales and marketing often outperform "professional" channels because authenticity and expertise can't be automated.
The biggest mistake I see is founders rushing to scale before they understand what actually drives their business. Non-scaleable tactics aren't a phase to get through quickly - they're your best tool for finding what's actually worth scaling.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups specifically:
Start with founder-led outbound before any automation
Add qualifying questions to trial signups
Manually onboard your first 50 customers
Use personal networks before paid acquisition
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores:
Manually curate products based on customer feedback
Start with founder-led social media before agencies
Use manual customer service to find product-market fit
Test pricing and positioning manually before automation