Compound growth

Meet Random Rick, Specialist Steve and Solid Sarah. See three approaches to growth and why only one compounds. Understand the model that shows how improvements multiply. Apply systematic thinking to double revenue.

Compound growth

Introduction

Small wins multiply when your growth engines work together. Traffic feeds the funnel, the funnel fills the pipeline, the pipeline validates your product. Better product-market fit makes traffic easier to convert.

Most marketers optimise one engine at a time. The real leverage comes from aligning all four so improvements stack and multiply.

That's compound growth: the difference between incremental gains and exponential results.

Chapters

1

Why shiny objects kill growth

Random tactics scatter your focus and burn you out. Systems compound effort into sustainable growth. See why working without structure leads to chaos.

2

Why traffic experts hit a plateau

Deep channel expertise doubles revenue but still hits a ceiling. Mastering one engine isn't enough. See why system thinking beats specialisation.

3

How compound growth beats hard work

Sarah runs fewer experiments but wins anyway. She aligns 12 metrics across 4 engines. See how systematic leverage creates exponential results.

4

How to double revenue without doubling the work

Small improvements across 12 metrics multiply into exponential growth. Learn how engines connect, why improvements compound, and where leverage lives.

5

How to set up compound growth

Install tracking infrastructure that shows which metrics drive revenue. Build your scorecard and launch your first cycle with the right foundation.

Compound growth

tools

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Books

Hacking growth

Sean Ellis

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Hacking growth

A practical framework for experiments and insights. Build loops, run tests and adopt a cadence that ships learning every week.

Lean Startup

Eric Ries

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Lean Startup

A disciplined approach to experiments. Define hypotheses, design MVPs and learn before you scale.

Traction

Gino Wickman

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Traction

A practical operating system for small teams. Install a cadence, set priorities and create accountability that sticks.

Startup growth engines

Sean Ellis

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Startup growth engines

A tour of growth case studies. Identify engines, spot patterns and design experiments that fit your context.

Wiki

Partner-led growth

Scale through partner relationships where other companies distribute your product to their customers in exchange for commissions or reciprocal value.

Sales-led growth

Win customers through direct sales conversations where reps guide prospects from discovery to close with personalised solutions and relationship building.

Founder-led growth

Build distribution through your personal brand and network where your expertise and story attract customers who trust you before your company.

Unit economics

Analyse profit per customer to determine if your business model works at scale before investing heavily in growth and customer acquisition.

Product-led growth

Drive acquisition and expansion through product experience where users discover value before sales conversations and upgrade based on usage.

Compound growth rate

Calculate your true growth trajectory by measuring the rate at which your business grows when gains build on previous gains over multiple periods.

Cohort analysis

Group customers by acquisition period to compare behaviour patterns and identify which acquisition channels and time periods produce the best long-term value.

Net Revenue Retention (NRR)

Track revenue growth from existing customers through expansion and contraction to prove your product delivers increasing value over time.

Churn rate

Measure the percentage of customers who stop paying to identify retention problems and calculate the true cost of growth in subscription businesses.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Calculate the total cost of winning a new customer to evaluate marketing efficiency and ensure sustainable unit economics across all channels.

Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)

Track predictable yearly revenue from subscriptions to measure business scale and growth trajectory in B2B SaaS and recurring revenue models.

Pirate metrics

Track your user journey through Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, and Revenue to identify which stage constrains growth most.

Growth engine

Build self-reinforcing systems across demand generation, funnel conversion, sales pipeline, and customer value that create continuous momentum.

Growth drivers

Identify the fundamental factors that directly cause business expansion, concentrating resources on activities that generate measurable results.

Constraint

Identify and leverage limitations as forcing functions that drive creative problem-solving and strategic focus.

Growth plateau

Diagnose and break through stagnation by identifying which business mechanisms have reached capacity and require new approaches.

Growth lever

Focus resources on high-impact business mechanisms where small improvements generate disproportionate results across the entire customer journey.

OMTM (One Metric That Matters)

Focus your entire organisation on the single metric that best predicts success at your current growth stage, avoiding distraction and misalignment.

Growth mindset

Cultivate belief that skills and results improve through deliberate effort, treating setbacks as learning opportunities rather than fixed limitations.

Related topic

Growth orchestration

Get a grip on what's actually working and what needs course correction. Use data and experiments to make decisions instead of opinions. See how changes in one part of the system affect everything else. Random tactics don't compound, coordinated ones do.

Compound growth

Other playbooks

Marketing automation setup

Marketing automation setup

Manual lead management breaks at scale. Automation captures every lead, scores them by intent, and keeps them warm until they're ready to buy all whilst you sleep.

Lead capture system

Lead capture system

Capture mechanisms turn anonymous traffic into known leads you can follow up with. Make it easy for prospects to signal interest at any moment in their journey without creating friction or annoying people.

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