Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
Last year, I was sitting in a discovery call with a B2B SaaS client who was burning through their runway faster than a Tesla in ludicrous mode. "We need users, fast," they said. "What's the fastest channel to get 10,000 signups?" I've heard this question probably 50 times in the past two years.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: the channels that drive the fastest user growth are often the ones that'll kill your business the slowest. While everyone's obsessing over "hockey stick growth" and "viral coefficients," most founders are optimizing for the wrong metrics entirely.
Through working with dozens of SaaS startups and e-commerce stores, I've learned that the question isn't "which channel is fastest?" It's "which channel builds sustainable revenue?" And the answer might surprise you.
In this playbook, you'll discover:
Why I rejected a $XX,XXX platform project because speed was the wrong priority
How my B2B SaaS client found their real growth engine (hint: it wasn't paid ads)
The counterintuitive approach that turned "slow" organic traffic into predictable revenue
A framework for choosing channels based on your business model, not industry hype
Why traditional user acquisition metrics are leading startups astray
Industry Reality
What every startup founder has been told about growth
Walk into any startup accelerator, scroll through any growth marketing blog, or attend any SaaS conference, and you'll hear the same gospel being preached: move fast and break things, find your viral loop, optimize for hockey stick growth.
The conventional wisdom goes something like this:
Social media is king - "Build a community, go viral, everyone's doing TikTok"
Paid ads scale fastest - "Just throw money at Facebook and Google until it works"
Product Hunt launches - "Get featured, get thousands of users overnight"
Influencer partnerships - "Find the right person with a big audience"
Growth hacking tactics - "Find the one weird trick that breaks the internet"
This advice exists because it makes for great case studies and compelling content. Stories about overnight success and 10x growth months get shared, bookmarked, and retold. They're the startup equivalent of lottery winner stories - exciting but not particularly useful for most people.
The problem? These "fast" channels often deliver what I call sugar rush growth - a quick spike followed by a crash. You get users fast, but they don't stick around, don't convert, or cost more to acquire than they're worth.
Most founders discover this the hard way when their runway is nearly gone and their "viral" user base has churned out.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
The wake-up call came when a potential client approached me with an exciting opportunity: 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 during our strategy session, they revealed their core motivation: "We want to test if our idea works by getting users as fast as possible." They had no existing audience, no validated customer base, no proof of demand. Just an idea and enthusiasm for "testing at scale."
I turned down the project.
Here's why: they were asking me to build a Ferrari before proving people wanted to drive anywhere. Their focus on speed was actually going to slow them down by months, cost them tens of thousands, and potentially kill their idea before it had a chance to succeed.
Instead, I recommended they spend week one creating a simple landing page, week two doing manual outreach to potential users, and week three manually matching supply and demand via email. Their MVP should be their marketing and sales process, not their product.
Around the same time, I was working with a B2B SaaS client who was struggling with a similar obsession with speed. They were burning money on Facebook ads and getting plenty of trial signups, but barely any conversions to paid plans. The metrics looked good on paper - high click-through rates, lots of signups - but the economics were broken.
That's when I dug deeper into their analytics and discovered something fascinating: their highest-value customers weren't coming from their "fast" paid channels at all.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
After analyzing multiple client situations, I developed what I call the Revenue-First Channel Framework. Instead of optimizing for speed, we optimize for sustainability and long-term value.
Step 1: Channel Audit and Attribution Analysis
The first thing I do with every client is perform a deep attribution analysis. Most companies rely on "last-click" attribution, which completely misses the real customer journey. When I dove into my B2B SaaS client's analytics, I discovered that a significant portion of their quality leads were actually coming from the founder's personal branding on LinkedIn.
The "direct" conversions in their analytics 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 insight completely changed our strategy.
Step 2: Cost-Per-Quality-Lead Analysis
Instead of measuring cost-per-click or cost-per-signup, I measure cost-per-quality-lead. For my SaaS client, we discovered that LinkedIn content had the lowest CPQL, even though it had the "slowest" signup rate. Users from LinkedIn were 3x more likely to convert to paid plans than users from Facebook ads.
This is where most founders go wrong - they optimize for vanity metrics (signups, downloads, followers) instead of revenue metrics (qualified leads, trial-to-paid conversion, customer LTV).
Step 3: The Channel-Product Fit Test
Just like product-market fit, there's such a thing as channel-product fit. I learned this the hard way while working on an e-commerce project with 1,000+ SKUs. Facebook Ads demands instant decisions, but their product strength was variety and discovery. The channel physics didn't match the product experience.
We pivoted to SEO, which rewards patient discovery. Customers could browse, compare, and find the right product for them. The "slower" channel generated higher-value customers who bought more and returned more often.
Step 4: The Compound Growth Model
The channels that compound over time always beat the channels that spike and fade. Content marketing, SEO, email lists, and personal branding might take 6-12 months to show results, but they build sustainable moats. Paid ads stop working the moment you stop paying.
For one e-commerce client, I implemented a complete SEO overhaul instead of doubling down on Facebook ads. Within three months, we went from 300 monthly visitors to over 5,000, and these visitors converted at higher rates because they had stronger intent.
Step 5: The Channel Stack Strategy
The most successful businesses don't rely on one "fast" channel - they build a stack of complementary channels that reinforce each other. Your content feeds your email list, your email list drives webinar attendees, your webinar content becomes social media posts, and so on.
This approach takes longer to set up but creates antifragile growth that actually accelerates over time rather than burning out.
Distribution Truth
The best channels are often the most boring ones
Trust Timeline
B2B sales require multiple touchpoints before conversion
Channel Physics
Every platform has rules - work with them, not against them
Compound Advantage
Some channels get better over time while others decay
The results speak for themselves, but they took time to manifest. My B2B SaaS client saw their trial-to-paid conversion rate increase from 8% to 23% over six months by focusing on LinkedIn content instead of Facebook ads. More importantly, their customer acquisition cost dropped by 60% while their average customer LTV increased by 180%.
For the e-commerce client who switched from paid ads to SEO, organic traffic became their #1 revenue driver within nine months. They went from spending $15,000/month on ads with diminishing returns to generating $50,000/month in organic revenue with increasing momentum.
But here's what the metrics don't show: peace of mind. When your growth doesn't depend on ad platforms that can ban you overnight or algorithm changes that can tank your reach, you sleep better. Your business becomes antifragile instead of hypersentitive to external shocks.
The compound effect is real. Content I created for clients 18 months ago is still driving leads today. Email subscribers from 2-year-old lead magnets are still converting. This is the power of choosing channels that build assets rather than rent attention.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
After implementing this framework across dozens of projects, here are the most important lessons:
Start with your customer, not the channel - Where do they already spend time? Where do they seek solutions? Don't force them to meet you in trendy new places.
Measure depth, not just reach - 100 engaged email subscribers are worth more than 10,000 random social media followers.
Build for compound growth - Choose channels where today's work makes tomorrow's work easier, not harder.
Don't mistake correlation for causation - Just because successful companies use certain channels doesn't mean those channels made them successful.
Channel-product fit matters more than channel popularity - The best channel for your business might be the most boring one.
Time horizons determine strategy - If you need revenue next month, focus on sales. If you want to build a business, focus on assets.
Distribution beats features - A mediocre product with great distribution always beats a great product with mediocre distribution.
When this approach doesn't work: If you truly need users TODAY (like a time-sensitive viral app), or if you have unlimited budget and are optimizing for learning speed over efficiency. But for most sustainable businesses, slow and steady builds the foundation for exponential growth.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups specifically:
Focus on trial-to-paid conversion before optimizing for trial volume
Build personal brands for founders - B2B buyers trust people, not logos
Content marketing compounds faster than paid acquisition scales
Email lists are owned audiences that can't be algorithm-ed away
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores:
SEO drives the highest-intent traffic for product discovery
Email and SMS have the best ROI for repeat purchases
Influencer partnerships work better than influencer ads
Conversion optimization often beats traffic optimization