Build your Startup Growth Machine

4.5

(29 ratings)

·

10 Days

·

Cohort-based Course

Find your big growth levers and pull them. Adopt the framework we've used to help over 200 seed-stage startups grow 10X - 100X in 3 years.

Previously at

Klarna
PayPal
Citi

Course overview

Great startups don't waste time on small stuff.

If you study history’s great startups, you’ll see a pattern: 90% of their growth came from 10% of the stuff they tried.


Every great startup finds a “big growth lever.” They must. They can’t out-work established brands or out-spend them. They out-think them. But very few people can do this well.


99% of startup growth people can run playbooks, but only 1% can write them.


Generic tactics like paid ads, SEO and referral programs will only get you so far. Big levers are seldom obvious, they come from specific unexpected customer insights, and cut across organizational functions.


In this course, you’ll get a proven process to find your company's big levers:


1. Agree on your North Star Metric to help everyone prioritize the most impactful work.


2. Find language/market fit to explain your value more clearly to customers.


3. Run experiments and use data to find things that really make an impact.


4. Lead growth sprints to push the pace and quality of learning and execution.


5. Hire top talent and inspire your team to do their best work.

Who is this course for

01

Early-stage founders who need a faster way to find product/market fit & unlock their first big growth lever.

02

Impatient Seed & Series A Founders who want their teams to find big levers, rather than wasting time on small ones.

What you’ll get out of this course

Find your North Star to focus everyone on the most impactful work.

Agree on your North Star Metric to break down silos and align everyone around growth. We'll help you stress-test it, and provide examples from SaaS, Marketplaces, apps, D2C and Ecommerce.

Use neuroscience to find language/market fit and explain your value more clearly to customers.

After a quick primer on the neuroscience of human perception, you'll learn to uncover your customers' unconscious biases and triggers and find the language that picks the lock. Then you'll learn to turn those insights into high-converting copy and validate it quickly.

Run growth sprints and experiment to find things that really make an impact.

See how to run growth sprints, how they're different from product sprints, and how to prioritise ideas (hint: not using I.C.E.)

Learn to design and run weekly growth experiments that go far beyond simple A/B tests. Master the Minimum Viable Testing: Small tests of big ideas.

De-risk your big growth hires.

Most startup growth hires fail, and that gets expensive. We'll use your work from the first 3 sessions to scope your next growth hire and figure out how to source and screen candidates with a high chance of success, and enable them to do their best work.

This course includes

6 interactive live sessions

Lifetime access to course materials

4 in-depth lessons

Direct access to instructor

6 projects to apply learnings

Guided feedback & reflection

Private community of peers

Course certificate upon completion

Maven Satisfaction Guarantee

This course is backed by Maven’s guarantee. You can receive a full refund within 14 days after the course ends, provided you meet the completion criteria in our refund policy.

Course syllabus

Expand all modules

    4.5

    (29 ratings)

    What students are saying

    What people are saying

            We worried it’d be generic like other programs and we wouldn’t learn anything new. But the principles were directly applicable to our business. It transformed our failing methods into systems that converted prospects into customers.”
    Darina Garland

    Darina Garland

    Co-Founder, Ooni Pizza Ovens
            They helped us create rigour around growth. We grew 22X in 18 months, and it would've taken us 3x longer to build our growth engine without their help."
    Juan Andrade

    Juan Andrade

    Co-Founder & CEO, Rebank (YC-W19)
            SCS made my job so much easier! Now I can get engineering resources and the founder actually listens to me."
    Ivo Kostadinov

    Ivo Kostadinov

    VP Growth, Love Electric
            "Theory means nothing unless it's put in the practice. This course pushes execution and holds you and your team accountable so you understand the reasons and learn at a much faster pace.
    Alex Depledge, MBE

    Alex Depledge, MBE

    Founder of Resi, prev. founder Hassle.com

    Meet your instructors

    Matt Lerner

    Matt Lerner

    Co-Founder, Startup Core Strengths, Ex. PayPal, 500 Startups

    Matt Lerner started his career as a growth marketer, and general manager in Silicon Valley, and had his first exit in 1998. He joined the early growth team at PayPal in 2004, where he rose to GM of an $800M B2B business. He left PayPal to become Partner with the VC 500 Startups. He founded Startup Core Strengths, where he has helped over 200 early stage startups "find their big growth levers." Matt has been invited to lecture at Stanford University, Berkeley and Imperial College.

    Nopadon Wongpakdee

    Nopadon Wongpakdee

    Co-Founder, Startup Core Strengths, ex. Citi Ventures, 500 Startups

    A digital marketer with 20+ years of experience, Nopadon has worked with 100+ start-ups as a consultant, Citi Ventures EIR and in-house growth hacker for 500 startups. As co-founder of Startup Core Strengths, Nopadon helps teams apply the Jobs To Be Done methodology to set up the foundations of a growth machine.

    Lisa Kennelly

    Lisa Kennelly

    Product Marketing Strategy @ Klarna

    2X startup CMO with 15+ years experience. Lisa leads product marketing strategy @ Klarna, previously CMO @ Fishbrain, and Director of Marketing @ Clue. She mentors with First Round Capital, Techstars, Antler, and of course Startup Core Strengths. Little-known fact: After earning a BA from Harvard, she started her career as a sports journalist covering the New York Yankees.

    A pattern of wavy dots
    Be the first to know about upcoming cohorts

    Build your Startup Growth Machine

    |

    Bulk purchases

    Course schedule

    4-6 hours per week
    • Monday, April 8

      4:00pm - 5:30pm BST

      Introduction

      Mapping your growth model

    • Wednesday, April 10

      4:00pm - 5:30pm BST

      Finding language/market fit

    • Monday, April 15

      4:00pm - 5:30pm BST

      Growth sprints & experimentation


    • Wednesday, April 17

      4:00pm - 5:30pm BST

      Leadership & Mindset Shift

    Learning is better with cohorts

    Learning is better with cohorts

    Active hands-on learning

    This course builds on live workshops and hands-on projects

    Interactive and project-based

    You’ll be interacting with other learners through breakout rooms and project teams

    Learn with a cohort of peers

    Join a community of like-minded people who want to learn and grow alongside you

    Frequently Asked Questions

    I work full-time, what is the expected time commitment?
    Can I get reimbursed by my company?
    Does the price include VAT?
    Are the lessons recorded, can we access the videos?
    How advanced is the material? (Do I need to be a marketing expert?)
    What stage startups is this appropriate for?
    What business models is this appropriate for? (SaaS? Ecommerce? Marketplaces?)
    I'd like my team to attend, do you offer volume discounts?
    I can’t attend, where else can I learn about this approach?
    What if I have additional questions about the course?
    A pattern of wavy dots
    Be the first to know about upcoming cohorts

    Build your Startup Growth Machine

    |

    Bulk purchases