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“Just figure out what you’re good at and do more of that - don’t distract yourself with your weaknesses.” Successful people give this advice all the time, but is it good advice? And should you follow it?
The answer is no.
In some cases, it may be useful for someone who has a very specialized skill set that’s in high demand and knows they want to do that one thing for the rest of their lives. But for anyone else - those of us who don’t want to get pigeonholed, and do want to earn our way into leadership and excel once we get there - we must do both.
Double down on your strengths and improve your weaknesses... to a certain point. More on that in a moment, but first a story.
I never actually got to meet Norm in person, but I would know his easy laugh anywhere.
We talked on the phone once a week for two years, yet I don’t even know his last name. Somehow, this blank where his last name should be makes my time with him feel that much more enchanted.
Norm died a few months ago.
Andy Johns has had the good sense to hop on, not one, but FOUR rocket ships. He’s been a key member of the early growth teams at Facebook, Twitter, and Quora and is now the Director of Growth and Revenue at Wealthfront. He may know a thing or two about hypergrowth.
That’s why I’ve devoured everything I could find about his approach to growing startups. Here, I’ve done my best to distill his perspectives on growth into eight actionable takeaways for the aspiring growth marketer.
The best growth leaders know how to adjust their focus depending on what their startup needs at any given phase in its trajectory.
I had the chance to interview Morgan Brown, one of growth’s OG’s. He has served as the Head of Growth at Qualaroo, GrowthHackers.com, and a number of other high growth startups. I found out that Morgan isn’t only a total badass when it comes to strategizing and executing growth plans, he’s also incredibly articulate when explaining the processes and frameworks that underlie his approach.
In the interview, I dug into the question of what growth looks like at different stages in a start up’s life cycle. So put your big girl growth marketing pants on and let me walk you through Morgan’s take on the key stages, and related inflection points, in a startup’s growth trajectory.