It’s an exciting time to be part of the startup ecosystem.
One of my highlights this week was spending time in person with VCs, founders, and fellow Stage 2 Capital LPs in Santa Monica. I love the energy and connection in the community.
From my conversations, I’m seeing a clear pattern across growth-stage founders, and if you’re scaling, you’re probably feeling it too.
Because once founders pass early traction, around $1M+ ARR, the challenges start to look pretty similar.
They’re navigating a similar inflection point.
Startup Reality: Early Traction
Early traction often comes from:
Founder-led sales
Referrals
Outbound
But if you’re going from $1.3M to $13M.. or trying to #10x
That won’t happen with a few referrals.
Referrals = unpredictable
Founder = too busy to be closing deals all day
Sales team. Would you want your top closers, hunting or closing?
You need predictable deal flow.
Shifting Outbound → Inbound, Winning the Growth Inflection #10x
Last month, we shared a client spotlight on MindCloud because they’re navigating that growth inflection in real time. They reflect the realities many founders face scaling past early traction.
MindCloud’s growth journey - from sales team spending 70% of the day hunting → closing repeatable inbound.
These founders bootstrapped
Make or break months 20K give or take
High stakes high pressure
At this stage, you can’t afford to “miss” - which is why marketing economics matter, how much is a customer worth, how much are you willing to pay, how many can you acquire, efficiently?
3 months later, they’re saying “it’s just math 🤪”
Whatever growth stage you’re in:
The same lessons apply, even (especially) as you move toward investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in ad spend per month.
Marketing economics
CEO/CRO alignment (ie, marketing and sales alignment)
Radical responsibility for scaling efficiently
Hear their story here.
We’re incredibly proud of the MindCloud team for sharing their story and even building a MindCloud + Google Ads workflow to accelerate campaign performance after solving it for themselves. If you’re scaling ad spend, feel free to reach out and we’ll share a free trial.
A little backstage fun below.
Shoutout MindCloud Sam Lusey (CRO) and Jamie Royce (CEO)
Key Takeaway
Founder hustle might get your first million.
Marketing economics drive scale.
Build predictable deal flow.
At The Agency, we help founders and businesses build paid acquisition systems that create more predictable deal flow.
If you’re doing $1M+ ARR and want a clear path to 10x growth
Book a strategy call with my team.
Happy Super Bowl day! 🏈