Key Takeaways
- Early growth isn’t about doing more, it’s about focusing on the few things that create lasting momentum.
- Customer understanding, retention and measurement matter far more than chasing vanity metrics.
- The best-performing consumer apps are built on strong growth systems, not isolated marketing tactics.
There’s no shortage of advice for startup founders. Open LinkedIn for five minutes and everyone is telling you to invest in influencers, build a referral programme, dominate TikTok, optimise for virality, launch a podcast, improve SEO, experiment with AI, create a community and publish more content. Individually, none of those ideas is bad. In fact, many of them work.
The challenge is that early-stage companies don’t have unlimited money, unlimited time or unlimited people. Every decision comes with an opportunity cost.
Read More: Building a Strong Marketing Tech Stack: How to Choose the Right Tools
The Big Question – What can we afford not to focus on yet?”
If I were building a consumer app today, I wouldn’t be asking, “What else should we do?”, I’d be asking, “What can we afford not to focus on yet?”
That question comes from years of driving growth and marketing in different contexts, from leading digital acquisition in enterprise banking, to helping grow a youth-focused digital banking product, working inside a global digital bank, and advising startups. I have found that the companies that grow consistently are not necessarily the ones doing the most. They are the ones that know what matters now, and what can wait.
1. I Wouldn’t Obsess Over Download Numbers
One lesson that has become increasingly clear to me over the years is that acquisition is only the beginning of the story. Downloads make for great board slides, but they don’t necessarily make for a great business. It is easy to celebrate a spike in installs after a successful campaign, but it’s much harder to explain why a large percentage of those users never come back.
During my time as content manager at Xapo Bank, for instance, the internal conversations about growth never stopped at traffic or acquisition. The focus quickly shifted to what happened next. Were people finding value? Were they engaging with the product? Were lifecycle communications helping members build confidence and use more of what the platform offered? Were users renewing their annual membership?
That’s a much healthier way to think about growth. The best consumer apps don’t just acquire users. They create reasons for people to return.
2. I Wouldn’t Try to Win Every Marketing Channel
Founders often feel pressure to be everywhere. Instagram. TikTok. LinkedIn. YouTube. Podcasts. PR. Influencers. Partnerships. SEO… the list keeps growing.
I have been part of teams managing multiple channels across different markets, and one thing has remained true regardless of company size: every channel creates work. It’s not just about publishing content. Every channel needs planning, creative, measurement, optimisation and ongoing attention. Spreading a small team too thin usually creates average results everywhere instead of exceptional results somewhere.
I would rather dominate one or two channels where I know my audience spends time than chase visibility everywhere. Because when it comes right down to it, focus compounds and delivers way more value over time than a “everywhere at once” strategy when there are no resources to support.
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3. I Wouldn’t Scale Paid Acquisition Before Understanding Retention
One of the easiest ways to burn marketing budget is to pour more people into a product before understanding why existing users are not staying. I have seen organisations become incredibly good at acquiring customers while paying far less attention to what happened after the first interaction.
That’s not only backwards, it’s expensively dangerous.
Every pound or dollar spent on acquisition becomes more valuable when customers stay longer, engage more deeply and recommend the product to others. This is one reason I’ve always enjoyed working across marketing, product and customer experience rather than treating them as separate conversations. Growth is not created by acquisition alone. It’s shaped by everything that happens after someone signs up.
4. I Wouldn’t Build My Strategy Around Going Viral
I have seen social media role descriptions where the primary KPI is to create viral content consistently. While every founder may dream about the post, video or campaign that suddenly takes off, the truth is that sometimes it happens and most times, it doesn’t.
I have worked on campaigns that significantly outperformed expectations. I have also worked on carefully planned campaigns that delivered solid, predictable results without attracting much attention outside the business and core target. Guess which ones I would rather build a company around?
While virality can be really exciting, without repeatability, it would be very challenging to scale at the right cost. The businesses I have seen grow consistently did not depend on one breakthrough moment. Rather, they built systems that helped them learn faster, improve continuously and make better decisions with every campaign.
5. I Wouldn’t Chase More Data Before Using the Data I Already Have
I could teach an entire masterclass on this one.
Whenever I work with businesses looking to accelerate growth, there’s often an assumption that better decisions require more data. In reality, many organisations already have more information than they are acting on.
The challenge isn’t collecting customer data, it is connecting the dots and using the data to inform better business decisions. Do you know where customers drop off during onboarding? Can you identify which lifecycle messages actually influence activation? Do you know which acquisition channels bring your highest-value users rather than simply the cheapest ones?
Those questions usually generate better conversations than adding yet another dashboard. The companies I have enjoyed working with most weren’t necessarily the ones with the most sophisticated technology stack, but those that turned customer insight into action, tracked the results on a consistent basis and applied learnings to further improve outcomes.
So, What Would I Prioritise Instead?
If I had to grow a consumer app today, my priorities would be quite simple:
- I’d spend time talking to customers and understanding why they came in the first place, and where they came from.
- I’d invest heavily in onboarding because first impressions have a habit of becoming lasting impressions.
- I’d build measurement before scaling spend, so decisions were driven by evidence rather than instinct.
- I’d make retention everyone’s responsibility instead of treating it as something that belonged exclusively to Product or CRM.
- And I’d build operating rhythms that helped the team learn quickly, rather than chasing every new growth trend that appeared on social media.
These are the foundations that make everything else work better. One of the biggest lessons I have learned in my career is that growth isn’t usually held back because businesses don’t know enough tactics, it’s usually because they are trying to do too many things before they have mastered the few that matter most.
Need a Fresh Perspective on Your Growth Strategy?
If you are building a consumer product and trying to turn growth into a repeatable system rather than a series of campaigns, I would be happy to help you identify where your biggest opportunities really are.