Most startup growth advice focuses on companies that are already at huge scale: marketplaces like Uber, freemium models like Dropbox, DTC brands with war chests like Casper's. It’s easy to come away from with an acquisition-at-all-costs approach that can be unsustainable.

If you work at a growth-stage startup, there’s a secret weapon you may be overlooking that’s helped startups like Segment and Codecademy grow fast but also with capital-efficiency. Used well, this growth lever can even become a strategic weapon against the competition. So who is this unsung hero?

Growth Ops.

In this post I’ll cover:

• What is Growth Ops?

• What are the revenue outcomes that a focus on growth ops can help you unlock?

• Why you should prioritize growth ops ahead of lifecycle marketing, sales ops, and product ops

• An example from Segment of how growth ops can be a strategic weapon vs. your competition

• An example of how growth ops reduced Fair’s CAC by 90%

• An Example of how I used growth ops to lower our CAC while doubling our customers in 6 months