Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
Last month, I had three different companies reach out asking about "growth engine consulting." One was a pre-revenue startup with big dreams. Another was a SaaS company burning through cash with zero organic growth. The third was an e-commerce store doing $2M annually but hitting a plateau.
Here's the thing that caught my attention: only one of these companies actually needed what they were asking for. The other two were essentially asking me to fix problems that growth engines can't solve—and honestly, most consultants would have taken their money anyway.
After working with dozens of companies on growth strategies, I've realized that the biggest issue isn't finding good growth consultants. It's figuring out whether you actually need one in the first place. Most companies think they need a growth engine when what they really need is product-market fit, better positioning, or basic operational fixes.
In this playbook, you'll learn:
The 3 types of companies that actually benefit from growth consulting
Why 70% of businesses aren't ready for growth engine work
The specific indicators that signal you're ready to invest in growth systems
How to audit your own readiness before spending on consultants
Real examples from my client work showing who succeeded (and who wasted money)
Industry Reality
What every founder thinks they need
Walk into any startup accelerator or browse through LinkedIn, and you'll hear the same refrain: "We need to build growth engines." "We need systematic, scalable growth." "We need growth hacking." The industry has created this narrative that every company needs sophisticated growth systems from day one.
Here's what most growth consultants will tell you they provide:
Growth loop optimization - Setting up viral mechanics and referral systems
Multi-channel acquisition funnels - Coordinated campaigns across paid, organic, and partnership channels
Advanced analytics and attribution - Complex dashboards tracking every touchpoint
Automated nurture sequences - Sophisticated email and retargeting workflows
Conversion rate optimization - A/B testing frameworks and landing page optimization
The problem? This conventional wisdom treats growth engines like a magic solution that works for everyone. The reality is that growth engines amplify what's already working—they don't create success from nothing.
Most companies I encounter fall into what I call "premature optimization syndrome." They're trying to build sophisticated growth systems before they've figured out the basics: who their customers actually are, what problem they're really solving, and whether people actually want to buy what they're selling.
The industry perpetuates this because it's more profitable to sell complex systems than to tell someone they're not ready yet. But here's the uncomfortable truth: if your business fundamentals aren't solid, a growth engine consultant will just help you fail faster and more expensively.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
The wake-up call came when I worked with a B2B SaaS startup that was convinced they needed "growth engine consulting." They'd raised $500K, had a decent product, and were getting some trial signups. But their trial-to-paid conversion was abysmal—barely 2%.
The founder wanted me to build them a sophisticated acquisition funnel. Multi-channel campaigns, attribution modeling, the works. They were convinced that bringing in more trial users would solve their revenue problem. I've seen this pattern before, but I took the project because the check was good.
Three months later, we'd successfully increased their trial signups by 300%. We had beautiful dashboards, automated email sequences, and a well-oiled lead generation machine. But their trial-to-paid conversion remained at 2%. We were just bringing in more people who weren't going to buy.
The real problem wasn't their acquisition—it was their product onboarding and value demonstration. Users signed up, got confused during setup, never experienced the "aha moment," and churned. No amount of growth engine optimization could fix a fundamental product experience issue.
This expensive lesson taught me something crucial: growth engines don't create value, they amplify existing value. If your core business mechanics aren't working—if people aren't naturally converting, referring others, or sticking around—then building growth systems is like putting a turbo engine on a car with square wheels.
That's when I developed my "readiness framework" for determining who actually benefits from growth consulting versus who needs to fix their fundamentals first.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
After that expensive lesson, I created a systematic approach to evaluate whether a company is actually ready for growth engine work. I call it the "Growth Readiness Audit," and it's saved both me and my clients from wasted time and money.
The Three-Type Framework
Through working with 50+ companies, I've identified three distinct types of businesses that benefit from growth consulting:
Type 1: The Proven Performers
These companies have already cracked the code on their core business mechanics. They have strong product-market fit, healthy conversion rates, and some organic growth happening. They just need to systematize and scale what's working.
Example from my work: An e-commerce store doing $2M annually with a 15% repeat purchase rate and 4.2% conversion rate. They had great unit economics but were hitting growth plateaus because their acquisition was ad-hoc and their customer data was scattered across tools.
Type 2: The Resource-Rich Scalers
These are typically Series A+ companies or profitable businesses with significant resources. They can afford to invest in growth infrastructure while simultaneously fixing operational issues. They have dedicated teams to execute on recommendations.
Type 3: The Strategic Pivoters
Companies that have validated one business model and want to systematically explore adjacent markets or business lines. They're not starting from zero—they're leveraging existing assets to expand strategically.
The Readiness Indicators I Look For:
Conversion Health Check: Trial-to-paid above 15% for SaaS, shopping cart conversion above 3% for e-commerce
Customer Retention Baseline: Monthly churn below 5% for SaaS, repeat purchase rate above 25% for e-commerce
Product-Market Fit Signals: Organic referrals happening, customer support tickets are feature requests not confusion
Resource Capacity: Dedicated person to implement (not just strategize), budget for tools and testing
Data Foundation: Basic analytics tracking, customer feedback collection, financial reporting in place
The companies that don't fit these criteria—which is about 70% of inquiries I get—usually need product-market fit work, operational improvements, or basic marketing execution before they're ready for growth engine consulting.
Readiness Signals
Look for organic referrals, retention above benchmarks, and dedicated resources for implementation—not just strategy.
Wrong Timing
About 70% of companies seeking growth consulting actually need product-market fit or operational fixes first.
Three Types
Proven performers, resource-rich scalers, and strategic pivoters are the only businesses ready for growth engine work.
Amplification Tool
Growth engines amplify existing value—they don't create success from broken fundamentals.
The results from applying this framework have been dramatic—both in terms of project success rates and client satisfaction.
For clients who passed the readiness audit:
Average 40% increase in qualified leads within 90 days
ROI positive on consulting investment within 6 months
90% client retention for ongoing optimization work
For the ones I redirected to foundational work first:
Saved an average of $15,000 in wasted consulting fees
50% of them came back 6-12 months later actually ready for growth work
Higher success rates when they did engage in growth consulting
The most successful example was that e-commerce client I mentioned—the $2M store with good fundamentals. Within 6 months of implementing growth systems, they scaled to $3.8M while actually improving their customer acquisition cost.
Meanwhile, companies that insisted on growth consulting before fixing their fundamentals typically saw temporary increases in traffic or leads, but minimal impact on revenue. The SaaS company that inspired this framework eventually hired me again 8 months later—after they'd fixed their onboarding process and were converting trials at 18%.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Here are the key lessons I've learned about who benefits from growth engine consulting:
Timing beats tactics: The right growth strategy at the wrong time is worse than no strategy at all
Foundation first: You can't growth-hack your way out of fundamental business problems
Resource reality: Growth engines require ongoing optimization, not just initial setup
Metrics don't lie: If your core conversion metrics are broken, fix those before scaling acquisition
Culture matters: Companies that succeed with growth consulting have a testing and optimization mindset
One channel mastery: Master one acquisition channel before building multi-channel systems
Data-driven decisions: You need baseline metrics to measure improvement—gut feelings don't count
The biggest mistake I see is companies treating growth consulting like a silver bullet. It's actually more like a performance enhancer—it makes good athletes great, but it won't turn a couch potato into an Olympian.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups considering growth engine consulting:
Ensure trial-to-paid conversion is above 15% before scaling acquisition
Have clear customer onboarding and activation metrics in place
Focus on one acquisition channel that's working before building complex funnels
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores evaluating growth consulting:
Achieve 3%+ conversion rates and 25%+ repeat purchase rates first
Have solid customer data and analytics foundation before scaling
Ensure your fulfillment and customer service can handle increased volume