Sam Stern

What to do to get more customers now

Growth Leader & Mentor
Lemonade, Mixpanel, DigitalOcean, 25+ Startups

Framework + concrete tactics to start driving growth and growing your customer base today as an early stage startup.

Answering the most common question I get from founders :)

You'll learn who to target first, where to find them & how to grab their attention

Channels, messaging, intent levels

You'll leave ready to execute when you have big goals and not such a big budget.

Limited budget, big goals

Build and execute proven AI-powered playbooks to accelerate the growth of your subscription business.

Growth Advisor | ex-Faire/Quizlet/Ibotta

Perplexity

Gamma

ElevenLabs

Chess.com

Imprint

Phil Carter

CEO of Elemental Growth and former product leader at Faire, Quizlet, and Ibotta.

Winter 2026

Summer 2026

Consumer subscription apps are easy to launch but hard to scale. This explains why there are hundreds of thousands of them in the Apple and Google app stores, but fewer than 50 that have ever reached $1B+ valuations.These businesses face several challenges:1. Overreliance on paid ads2. High subscriber churn rates3. ARPU is low and hard to grow The best subscription apps overcome these headwinds by:1. Building their businesses on a unique and enduring core value promise2. Harnessing it to drive a Subscription Value Loop that improves LTV/CAC and Payback Period through three steps:- Value Creation: Quickly connecting new users to the app’s core value promise- Value Delivery: Cost-efficiently distributing the app to users through paid and organic channels- Value Capture: Converting free users into subscribers to generate revenue that can be reinvested into the business In this course, which Lenny Rachitsky called the "new bible" for anyone building a consumer subscription app, you will learn how to harness the power of the Subscription Value Loop along with dozens of proven frameworks, strategies, and tactics from category-leading subscription apps to accelerate your own business.

Supercharge the growth of your consumer subscription business

Learn and apply the Subscription Value Loop framework

Assess your app vs. industry benchmarks to identify major growth opportunities

Improve your premium product experience to generate more value for subscribers

Leverage proven paid and organic acquisition strategies to accelerate growth

Optimize paywalls, pricing, packaging, payments, and promotions to boost revenue

Apply lessons in live cases with leaders from Gamma, Tinder, Calm and AllTrails

Founders and execs: Consumer subscription CEOs and product and marketing leaders who want to maximize growth for their businesses.

People managers: VPs and directors managing cross-functional teams responsible for subscriber acquisition, retention, and monetization.

Senior individual contributors (ICs): PMs, marketers, and other ICs working on growth teams at consumer subscription companies.

Develop positioning and messaging that fuel pipeline 

CMO, Advisor, Author of Standout Startup

Allyson Letteri

CMO, GTM Advisor, and Author of Standout Startup. 

Cohort 1

When your messaging resonates, your pipeline grows faster. But many startups struggle to communicate their product’s value to their ideal customers.In just 2.5 hours, you’ll fix this.You’ll capture the insights you need to sharpen your positioning, then use AI to build a high-converting messaging framework. Finally, you’ll put it into action with a homepage outline you can launch fast.You’ll learn how to: ✨ Define clear positioning that sets you apart ✨ Build messaging that actually drives pipeline ✨ Turn messaging into a homepage you can launch nowThis workshop is hands-on and fast-paced.You’ll leave with messaging you can launch right away, plus a repeatable process to refine your messaging as your market shifts.This workshop sets the foundation for every part of your GTM strategy.

Create messaging that drives pipeline. Clarify your positioning and build high-converting messaging you can launch, fast.

Define your ICP and buyer persona

Sharpen your positioning and differentiation

Build messaging that converts

Turn messaging into a homepage that sells

B2B startup leaders who need effective messaging to launch their new product or increase pipeline and sales.

Marketing managers who want to learn a smart process to create high-converting messaging that drives more leads and better launches.

PMs and engineers who need the tools to develop positioning and value propositions so that their products sell.

How I Bought a 45-Year-Old Business With No Savings — And How You Can Too

1x Founder, 2x CEO, 3x Head of Product

The Home Depot

U.S. Army

Cadence

Unilever

Stanford University

Rocky

June 2026

Most employees are one reorg away from a job search. But there's another path: buying a small business that already has customers, cash flow, and proof.Rocky did exactly that — acquired a 45-year-old business with zero savings. No VC. No co-founder. No startup risk.In 1 day, you'll learn the exact playbook he used — from finding the right deal to running it with AI.AI isn't just changing products — it's eliminating the jobs that build them.If you're a Business or Product Manager (PM) who's watched colleagues get laid off, wondered how long your role is safe, or just realized you're building someone else's wealth — this workshop is for you.Entrepreneurship by Buyout is the path most Business Managers and Product Managers don't know exists: acquiring a small business that already has customers, revenue, and cash flow — then running it as the CEO.Rocky did it. He acquired a 45-year-old business with no personal savings, converted it into an AI-native company, and now teaches PMs how to evaluate if this path is right for them.

<code>Ambitious Business &amp; Product Manager: You've mastered your craft. Apply it to something you own — with real financial upside and no ceiling.</code>

Risk Aware Business &amp; Product Manager: Layoffs happen to great people too. A cash-flowing business gives you income no manager can take away

Side Income Business &amp; Product Managers: Learn to evaluate real deals now so you're ready when the right opportunity appears

I guide you through the commercial logic that determines whether your course sells or not: problem, buyer, credibility, and outcomes.

xVP at Maven, Qual Research Expert

Maven

Vanina Schick

Product Marketing Leader I Qualitative Research Expert I Course Design Consultant

You have expertise. The kind that can change a career. You want to share it, build your reputation and income with a course. But you don't want to become a course marketer. I get it. I don't either, and I'm a marketer.Here's what I learned as VP Marketing at Maven. Some experts create courses that just seem to pull demand. They share content and professionals enroll. No hard-sell required.Why? Their course is a credible solution to a specific professional problem with real economic stakes. The right buyer finds it and the response is immediate: this is exactly what I need, now! Not: I'll think about it. Not: maybe one day.These experts didn't get lucky. They found where the most unique and credible part of expertise overlaps with urgent market demand. They found their Course-Market Fit. There are three ways to do that.<ol><li>Iterate towards it. Launch, fail, adjust, repeat. It works, but it takes months and multiple cohorts to nail.</li><li>Intuit it. If you have an unusually clear read on your buyer's problem, this works too. Most experts are too close to their topic to get there.</li><li>Intentionally design it. There's a structured process to find Course-Market Fit in two weeks. It's this course.</li></ol>

Your course will sell if it is a credible solution to a painful problem 

Design a course that professionals need to enroll in

Make your credibility do the selling (zero-ick)

Define exactly what you're selling, and why it justifies the investment

Leave with clarity on your Course-Market Fit

You are actively planning to build or reposition a course (not exploring the idea in the abstract).

You have a course to build or reposition

You have a domain of expertise deep enough to serve as a practitioner guide. This course positions  existing expertise. It cannot create it.

Your expertise is real and practiced 

This course fits in with full time job, but is demanding. You must be willing to do deep, structured work across two weeks. 

 You're here to work: exercises, live critique, real output

Deep expertise, no audience — you know your knowledge is valuable, but you don't have an existing audience.

Course launched, not converting — you've built a great course and suspect the sales gap is coming from positioning, not content.

Compelled to teach, not to sell — you want a course that earns its own enrollment. Constant pitching is not a posture you want to hold.