Podcast episodes, resources, how-to-guides (and more)

Season 1

You’re Doing

Growth

Wrong

For startup founders and marketers tired of learning about growth the hard way

Check out older posts for tips on research, CRO and competitor analysis. Or scroll down for templates, guides and other resources

Templates and guides

Resources for

growing

startups

Grab them so you don’t waste time reinventing the wheel

A 3-step evaluation to see if you may run into messaging issues as you scale

Going through reviews (yours or competitors’) can make finding the right words to attract your prospects so. much. easier.

Differentiation analysis. Mapping out your case studies. And — my personal favorite — a monster research organizer.

Choose your own adventure by scrolling through published posts:

Adding power words to your B2B SaaS website headlines won't fix conversions. Do this instead.
Website copy, Growth Ekaterina Howard Website copy, Growth Ekaterina Howard

Adding power words to your B2B SaaS website headlines won't fix conversions. Do this instead.

I’ve reviewed dozens of early-stage startup websites and worked with Series A and bootstrapped companies on their web copy and messaging, and in all cases, tweaking hero section headline was not the answer.

The answer was figuring out why the website was actually underperforming — and how to fix that.

The “how” will depend on your product and your audience. But the website sections that are neglected are almost always the same.

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When what you don’t know hurts your conversion rates
Customer research, Website copy, Growth Ekaterina Howard Customer research, Website copy, Growth Ekaterina Howard

When what you don’t know hurts your conversion rates

You can’t scale effectively without answering these questions:

  1. “What do we say to our audience?”

  2. “How can we position ourselves in a way that makes sense to our audience?”

  3. “How do we differentiate ourselves from other solutions?”

  4. “How can we stand out — and present our product in a way that makes our prospects want to find out more?”

  5. “How can we persuade our prospects to reach out?”

And very often, as I start answering these questions for my clients, this is where we uncover those potential issues that would otherwise have stayed invisible.

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A rocketship launch or a leap of faith?
Customer research, Website copy, Growth Ekaterina Howard Customer research, Website copy, Growth Ekaterina Howard

A rocketship launch or a leap of faith?

Trying to speed up your startup growth may be slowing it down. If you’re focusing on quick fixes and not pattern-finding.

When my prospects say: “We have no time for this,” “We already know everything about our customers,” “We’ll just A/B test it,” or “Can you just write it?” — what I hear is: “We’re flying blind and kinda like it that way.”

(I have yet to work on a project where all of the research data lined up neatly with assumptions and guesses about conversion drivers for a specific target audience. Never ever has it happened — which is why we need the research phase in the first place.)

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4 mindset traps that prevent you from running effective customer interviews
Customer research, Growth Ekaterina Howard Customer research, Growth Ekaterina Howard

4 mindset traps that prevent you from running effective customer interviews

“Talk to your customers,” they said. But how do you actually get to those mind-blowing insights everyone’s talking about?

Yes, interviewing customers is complicated. But not the way you think.

Scheduling interviews, coming up with incentives (or choosing not to incentivize), deciding on the questions, and challenging yourself to turn on your camera are all table stakes. The biggest challenge: overcoming mindset traps that make you a crappy interviewer, without you even noticing.

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