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Identify Your Acquisition Motion

Filter Paid, Content, Virality, Sales motions by fit to find which are viable for your startup.

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AI guided assistance

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7 lessons

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3 hands-on projects

About this course

This chapter is about choosing the right acquisition motion for your startup. You’ll learn how the four core motions—Paid, Content, Virality, and Sales—each come with different tradeoffs, timelines, and requirements. By evaluating them against your Foundational Five and guardrails, you’ll narrow down which ones are actually viable for your business model, audience, and resources.

The goal isn’t to pick tactics yet, but to identify which motions could realistically fuel your growth engine. You’ll assess fit based on factors like ARPU, payback period, market behavior, and your team’s strengths. By the end, you’ll have a clear picture of which motions you can pursue now, which to save for later, and how they align with your broader growth system.

Syllabus

The types of acquisition motions

Learn the 4 acquisition motions—paid, content, viral, sales—and when each fits your startup.

Flywheels vs linear channels

Channels act as either flywheels (compounding loops) or linear paths (direct input-output tradeoff).

Acquisition flywheels

Flywheels require high scale, fast velocity, and low leakage; paid, virality, and search can qualify.

Linear, Booster, and Kickstarter Channels

Linear channels scale in proportion to effort, boosters give short-term spikes, and kickstarters seed early traction.

Your best-fit acquisition motions

Paid works for $100–$1k ARPU and fast results; content compounds long-term; virality fits shareable/low-ARPU products; sales fits high-ACV, complex deals.

Projects

Project: Define your acquisition motion

Identify which motions (Paid, Content, Virality, Sales) are viable now vs later using fit checks.

Why join the Growth Program

3,000+ startups have used the Growth Program to get results like these...

We landed two big meetings using their cold outreach strategy — while we were still in the course.

– Wayne Anderson

Co-Founder, SmartAlto

You learn the tactics DC uses to grow their clients. When I wrote the growth book, Traction, I hoped someone would build a course like this.

– Justin Mares

Founder, Kettle & Fire

This is the team you want to learn growth from. They know every channel and every tactic. And they know how to scale efficiently.

– Elie Schoppik

Education, Anthropic

I've learned so much as a new marketer that probably would have taken at least a few months and considerable stress. The confidence boost I have now when running campaigns and publishing projects is unparalleled.

– Brent Jensen

Growth, Hopper

The DC course might be the most valuable thing I've done for my career. The course allows you to tailor your experience to serve the needs of your business, and every project you do contributes to growth in a direct way.

– Candace Kim

Marketing, Scanwell

The Demand Curve team knows paid acquisition, conversion, landing pages, and a lot more very well. If you’re lagging behind on your growth skills, let them teach you what you’re missing.

– Alex Kracov

Founder, Dock

Join the program that has helped thousands of founders get traction and scale their revenue.

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Hiten Shah

Co-Founder, Nira

“I open and read every email that Demand Curve sends. The content is advanced and teaches something novel and useful in each issue.”