Last week we hosted our July Operators Club event at Lamplighter CX in Cambridge to talk about Growing Fast in 2024. A special thanks to HubSpot for Startups / HubSpot Ventures & Fidelity Private Shares for co-hosting (more on them below)!
We had a couple powerhouse operators turned Founder / CEOs join us to share their insights in Andrew Lau, Co-Founder & CEO of Jellyfish and John Andrews, Co-Founder & CEO of Cimulate. Thank you both for donating your time!
The main takeaway? Growth is about nuance, timing, and being ready. It takes operating rigor and experience to learn to ride the waves, ask good questions, and most of all great things take time to build. Being ready is more important than your pace of growth! Even if your investors get impatient!
Here are 5 learnings they shared on growing fast…in 2024:
- Fear vs. Greed – This market moment, on the pendulum between fear & greed, is slightly more tilted toward greed. When you make investments you take that pendulum position into account, knowing full well you cannot predict the future
- Growth = Market Reflection – Growth is somewhat outside of your control as the market dictates what is asked for in terms of demand for your product. Growth then, is a “best guess” of the resources and investments you need to make to meet that demand in 6, 12, or 18 months time. The larger your startup, the longer the planning cycles needed!
- Be Ready – Growth is a decision and being ready is more important than your growth rate
- Andrew shared that Jellyfish underwent 2+ years of professional services / design partnership building with alpha/beta partners before they properly went to market. Then they did Founder Sales to nail the GTM motion, pricing, and team needed to execute before they scaled the team
- John shared that Cimulate built their first MVP in 6 to 9 months but recognized they weren’t fully ready to go to market with an Enterprise offering. The ability to be live & successful with initial customers first in order to produce case studies with tangible ROI so they could replicate their GTM motion is much more important than speed to market
- Operate Within the System: Timeless advice for operators is to recognize the macro and surf the waves that are out there. Operate within the system. For example, don’t be the leader pounding the table asking for a ton of headcount & budget in a tightening environment. Executive teams really appreciate the awareness!
- Find A Good Crew: John & Andrew’s advice for up & coming startup founders and operators is to find a good crew you can learn and grow alongside. The two of them worked together 15 years ago at Endeca and still keep in touch regularly
Thank you both for your wisdom!
And thank you to our co-hosts & sponsors..
- Fidelity Private Shares is the all in one equity management platform. Automate your startup equity management operations and financings in a single collaborative hub.Kristen Craft always available to tell you more at kristen.craft@fmr.com
- HubSpot for Startups helps you Grow Better & Scale Smarter: get a library of free resources, access to top investors, and a place to meet other passionate founders – plus exclusive discounts on AI-powered growth tools. Give Rafael Obando a shout at robando@hubspot.com
- HubSpot Ventures invests in early and growth-stage (Series A and beyond) software companies with the potential to deliver unique value to HubSpot’s customer base. We invest in remarkable founders who share our mission to help millions of organizations grow better by building products that improve customer experience.Nate Morgan is your go to here at nmorgan@hubspot.com
Keep an eye out for future events with MGMT Boston and our partners! Back with a top Boston startup next week!