Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
Last year, a potential client approached me with what seemed like a dream project: build a two-sided marketplace platform with a substantial budget. The technical challenge was interesting, and it would have been one of my biggest projects to date. But after one conversation, I said no.
Why? Because they told me exactly what's wrong with how most founders think about growth: "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. They wanted to spend months building a complex platform to "test if it works." This is the classic trap of chasing scaleable solutions before proving non-scaleable ones work.
Here's what I've learned from years of working with SaaS startups and watching them succeed or fail: the companies that win are the ones that master non-scaleable tactics first. They do things that don't scale until they find what works, then they scale that.
In this playbook, you'll discover:
Why "scaleable from day one" thinking kills most startups
The 4 categories of non-scaleable tactics that actually drive growth
Real examples from my client work where manual processes beat automation
How to identify which non-scaleable tactics to prioritize
When to transition from manual to automated workflows
Industry Reality
What the Growth Playbooks Don't Tell You
Open any startup growth guide and you'll see the same advice: build scaleable systems from day one. Set up marketing automation, create viral loops, implement growth hacking frameworks, optimize conversion funnels. The message is clear: if it doesn't scale, don't do it.
This advice comes from a reasonable place. Successful companies eventually need scaleable systems. VCs want to see "scaleable business models." And frankly, scaleable sounds more sophisticated than manual.
The typical growth playbook looks like this:
Build a minimum viable product with all the features you think users need
Create marketing automation to drive traffic and conversions
Implement analytics to track every metric
A/B test everything to optimize performance
Scale what works across multiple channels
The problem? This approach assumes you already know what works. It's building the machine before you understand what the machine should do. Most founders spend 90% of their time building scaleable systems and 10% validating whether anyone actually wants what they're building.
But here's what actually happens: you build beautiful, scaleable systems that scale nothing. You create elaborate automation workflows that automate the wrong processes. You optimize conversion funnels that convert the wrong people.
The companies that succeed do the opposite. They start with brutally manual, non-scaleable tactics to discover what works. Only then do they build systems to scale it.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
The client I mentioned wanted to build a two-sided marketplace for their industry. When I asked about their current customers, the conversation went like this:
"Do you have existing customers using your service manually?"
"Not yet, but we have a great idea for how it should work."
"Have you manually connected supply and demand for even one transaction?"
"No, but our platform will automate all of that."
This is when I knew they were approaching growth backwards. They wanted to scale something that didn't exist yet.
I've seen this pattern repeatedly in my client work. A B2B SaaS client once came to me frustrated that their beautiful product wasn't getting traction. They'd spent months perfecting the user interface, building integrations, and setting up marketing automation. But they had zero paying customers.
When I asked how they'd validated demand, they showed me their landing page signup metrics. "See? People are interested!" But signing up for a waitlist isn't the same as paying for a solution.
The problem was clear: they'd skipped the non-scaleable validation phase entirely. They'd gone straight to building scaleable solutions without proving that anyone would pay for the underlying value.
This experience taught me something crucial: your first MVP shouldn't be a product at all—it should be your marketing and sales process. You need to prove you can manually create value before you automate the process.
The most successful founders I work with are the ones who embrace the messiness of non-scaleable tactics first. They're willing to do things manually, even when it feels inefficient, because they understand that efficiency without effectiveness is useless.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
When I encounter founders stuck in the "build first, validate later" trap, I walk them through what I call the Non-Scaleable First framework. It's based on one simple principle: if you can't make it work manually, automation won't save you.
Here's the four-category system I use with clients:
Category 1: Manual Customer Acquisition
Instead of building complex marketing funnels, start with direct outreach. When working with that B2B SaaS client, we ditched their elaborate lead scoring system and I had the founder personally reach out to 100 potential customers via LinkedIn. Not through automation tools—actual personal messages.
The result? They learned more about their market in two weeks than they had in six months of "scaling" their marketing. They discovered their initial positioning was wrong, their pricing was too low, and their target customer was completely different than they'd assumed.
Category 2: High-Touch Onboarding
Most SaaS companies obsess over self-service onboarding flows. But the smartest approach is often the opposite: manually onboard every single customer, even if it takes hours.
I worked with a SaaS startup that was frustrated with low activation rates. Instead of optimizing their automated tutorial, we had the founder personally onboard every new user via Zoom. This "unscaleable" approach taught them exactly where users got confused, what features they actually needed, and how to position the product's value.
Those insights later became the foundation for their automated onboarding—but only after they'd perfected the manual process.
Category 3: Direct Problem-Solution Matching
Rather than building comprehensive solutions, focus on solving specific problems manually. For that marketplace client I turned down, I recommended they start by manually matching just one buyer with one seller per week.
This approach forces you to understand the real friction points, the actual value exchange, and the true barriers to transaction. Only once you can consistently create value manually should you think about platformization.
Category 4: Founder-Led Content and Outreach
This is where I've seen the biggest impact with my SaaS clients. Instead of hiring content teams or setting up complex content calendars, the most successful founders become the voice of their company.
One client was struggling to gain traction despite having a solid product. When we analyzed their successful customers, we discovered they were all coming from the founder's personal LinkedIn content—not from their paid ads or SEO efforts. His personal brand and direct engagement were the real growth engine, not their "scaleable" marketing systems.
The playbook became simple: double down on what was already working. He spent more time creating authentic content about his industry expertise, engaging directly with prospects, and building relationships one conversation at a time.
Key Insight
Non-scaleable doesn't mean ineffective—it means learning-focused rather than efficiency-focused.
Manual Process
Start with manual execution to understand every step before automating anything.
Direct Engagement
Personal, one-on-one interactions reveal insights that analytics never capture.
Validation First
Prove value creation manually before building systems to scale it.
The results speak for themselves. That B2B SaaS client who embraced manual customer acquisition? They went from zero paying customers to 15 qualified prospects in their pipeline within a month. More importantly, they discovered their product-market fit was completely different than they'd assumed.
The founder who focused on personal LinkedIn content instead of "scaleable" marketing? His company's revenue grew by 200% in six months, and 80% of their customers now cite his thought leadership as the reason they initially engaged.
But here's the most important result: these companies now know what to scale. They're not building systems and hoping they work—they're systematizing processes they've already proven effective.
The marketplace client? They never built that expensive platform. Instead, they started manually matching buyers and sellers. Within three months, they'd facilitated enough transactions to understand the real business model. When they finally do build technology, it'll be to scale something that already works, not to test whether it might work.
The pattern is consistent: companies that master non-scaleable tactics first end up scaling faster and more successfully than those who start with "scaleable" solutions.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Looking back at dozens of client projects, here are the key lessons about non-scaleable growth tactics:
1. Efficiency is the enemy of learning. The moment you optimize for efficiency, you stop learning. Non-scaleable tactics are messy and time-consuming, but they teach you things automation never will.
2. Your customers will tell you what to build—if you're listening. Manual processes force you to stay close to customer feedback. Automated systems can run for months without you realizing they're solving the wrong problem.
3. Founder involvement isn't a bug, it's a feature. The companies that scale successfully are led by founders who deeply understand their customers because they've personally served them.
4. "Unscaleable" often becomes your competitive advantage. While competitors chase automation, manual, high-touch approaches can become your differentiation.
5. Scale the process, not the idea. Don't try to scale your assumptions—scale what you've proven works through manual execution.
6. Know when to transition. The goal isn't to stay manual forever. It's to understand what works so you can scale intelligently.
7. Non-scaleable tactics work best when they're systematic. Random manual efforts don't work. Systematic, measurable manual processes do.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups specifically:
Manually onboard your first 50 customers via video calls
Have founders personally respond to all support tickets initially
Build your initial customer base through direct LinkedIn outreach
Create content based on real customer conversations, not keyword research
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores:
Personally package and include handwritten notes with first 100 orders
Manually reach out to customers for reviews and testimonials
Test product demand through manual pre-orders before inventory investment
Build initial community through personal engagement, not automated social media