Intro: The Foundational Five

All right! Welcome to Part Two of the program. In Part One, we examined our DC Growth System. We also explored some key concepts to help you level up as a growth thinker and growth leader. Very importantly, we examined how real growth — the kind of sustainable, defensible, scalable, and predictable growth you're looking for — does not start at the channel level.

It does not start with tactics. You certainly cannot hack your way to the kind of growth that you're seeking. Real growth comes from a systems design approach. We must engineer the foundation of our business for growth, and the earlier we do it, the better.

The Foundational Five framework is exactly how we engineer that alignment.

Now, one quick call out. Personally, this is my favorite startup growth framework. It allows me to take a company that I've never seen before and, within minutes, assess how they should be approaching growth and diagnose their key constraints. That makes for an incredibly powerful tool. And it's exactly why we make it a core part of this program.

As such, I really (like really, really) want to stress the importance of this part of the program. I know many of you are excited to jump into the tactical layer. I know you're excited to build channels. Turn them on. Watch traffic start coming in. I know you're excited to build landing pages and test new ad creatives. However, I must emphasize again the importance of the program's foundational components. If you don't get this right, growth will be a struggle.

If you do get it right, you're giving yourself a massive advantage. You are significantly increasing the odds of finding a scalable growth engine. You'll even increase your chances of finding product-market fit. If you've ever looked at another company and thought, "How does growth seem so easy for them?" — it's because of their foundation. While they may have landed on a strong foundation by happenstance, YOU will have the tools to engineer it.

So, please give this the attention it deserves. It will save you so much time down the road. We see so many founders... they come to us after years of trial and error. Years of guesswork and running in place because they lack a framework like this. My hope is to help you skip that phase and come out of the gate with an exceptionally strong foundation, putting you in the best position to have that scalable growth engine you're looking for.