OK, so at the risk of giving you whiplash: There is such thing as being too focused. Not seeing the forest for the trees. Essentially, being too focused on the wrong things.

The Common Belief

In the growth world, it is quite common to hear things like,

“growth marketing/performance marketing/data-driven marketing are superior to harder-to-measure activities like brand marketing.” 

Why is this a problem?

Because people who blindly follow the gospel unknowingly eliminate some of the most powerful growth opportunities at their disposal.

What True Growth Requires

True growth requires being bold. Being comfortable investing in things that can’t be measured in real-time in a dashboard or with a tracking pixel. It requires having vision and conviction in that vision. It also requires a deep understanding of your customers and the market in which you operate.

So what’s the point?

Not everything worth doing is immediately measurable.

Now that may seem to contradict what we're talking about when we're saying you need to grow like a scientist and conduct thoughtful experiments that must be able to be measured in order to capture our highest leverage learnings. But in this context, what I'm trying to steer you away from is the common misconception that certain growth activities are superior to others.

Setting the Stage

I'm setting the stage for what we are going to teach you, and sometimes even push you, to consider in terms of acquisition efforts, for example. 

And I want you to walk away understanding that all of these different flavors of marketing, channels, whatever… they are just tools.

None of them is inherently good or bad.