case study on growth

• Growth marketing

Impressive growth marketing case studies from Dashly clients [tactics, tools, results]

Ever wondered what it’s like to peek behind the growth hackers’ curtain? Well, buckle up! I’m the skipper at Dashly’s Growth Team and I’ve got some secrets to spill. Arm yourself with our most impressive growth marketing case studies straight from our playbook!

Cutting to the chase — these are tales of cunning tactics, cunning tools, and pretty darn good results. Sketches of how we’ve driven businesses from various sectors, SaaS companies included, to pump up their marketing game and reach those exhilarating milestones.

Through this breezy read, we’re letting you in on the nitty-gritty of how we collaborate with our customers. It’s about creating sterling strategies and celebrating stellar outcomes.

And guess what? We’re going to reveal our backstage magic — the strategies and stories of success. So get ready to dig deep into how we’ve woven growth into our clients’ stories. These bite-sized nuggets of wisdom could be the spark you need to level up your own game!

Yup, every business is its own beast, but when we face it together and learn from each other, that’s where you find the real growth. Let’s dive in!

Skyrocket marketing lead generation

+1,152 leads growth with a chatbot growth marketing case .

One of the customers’ case studies Dashly is working on is a school aimed at film production. When folks browse through their site investigating different courses, decision-making isn’t typically a rapid process.

And the fix for this?

The crew behind the digital academy figured out the preferences of the site visitors and assembled their contact details for the sales people. This opened the gateways for them to connect with the potential leads and offer guidance in selecting the most fitting course.

Qualifying leads emerge as a vital element in hacking growth as it lends you a meaningful understanding of your intended crowd.

So, they decided to integrate a Dashly chatbot on their online platform to:

👉 Kickstart chats with the guests; 👉 Put forward qualifying queries; 👉 Compile contact numbers.

This collected data is then transported to amoCRM, arming the sales folks with all the info they need to give potential students a ring and make a suitable course suggestion.

The payoff? They achieved 1,152 leads growth in a mere five months.

+12% target leads growth with pop-up quiz and chatbot

We’re weaving the saga of Seamus Bennett (CEO and co-founder of  KVR , a top-tier software development firm), who onboarded Dashly to turbocharge the lead qualification mechanics on his website, a strategic move to drive growth.

Sales heavyweights previously operated exclusively with those eager to swiftly fork out funds and dive headfirst into product deployment. But to amp up revenue and align with growth marketing strategies, the case required mastering techniques to engage with prospects requiring more nurturing time and not prepped for an instant buy. This marketing growth strategy is somewhat convoluted.

The mission of pushing for long-term sales may appear a tad alien to sales veterans whose monthly windfalls hinge on achieving preset sales targets. What’s the remedy?

1. Lead qualification pop-up quiz on product pages (since its visitors are more ready to buy.)

Thus, they can define leads that meet the ICP portrait and call them first. It’s one of the best growth marketing tips .

2. Chatbot to capture and qualify blog readers 

Each reader browsing the content within the blog articles was given the chance to interact with a chatbot following the initial 30 seconds of their session. The outcomes for the company:

👉 An increase of 12% in orders due to the integration of engaging pop-up quizzes and the chatbot into their strategy. 👉 A solid 60% of orders originating from the quizzes and the Dashly chatbot are specifically targeted.

Read the entire story

Thanks! Here’s your copy of  the growth strategy template

School for IT and Data specialists got +44% applications growth

This case study of Dashly client was grappling with an issue: An underwhelming number of applications on the course pages. A chunk of visitors bounce without sealing the deal, and inquiries of those who eventually do aren’t attended to speedily by the managing crew. Hence, the anticipated uptick in key growth marketing metrics for their business remained elusive.

Chatbot on the “Data Science from scratch” course page

The chatbot, snugly fit within the Dashly platform, doesn’t suddenly prompt you to enroll for a course. Instead, it gently evolves into a lead qualifier, presenting itself as an assistant to help carve your education journey and manage personal career hurdles.

The impact made by this implementation in their product strategy: 

• 7.5% of users disclosed their emails,
• 5.3% parted with their phone numbers.

Chatbot on the “Data Science: Advanced course” page

This particular page is tailored for seasoned pros looking to carve a niche in this industry. Here, the chatbot’s objective is to reinforce the fact that they’ve stumbled upon the perfect hotspot to satisfy their ambitions and elevate their abilities, perfectly aligning with the company’s growth goals.

Leveraging creative marketing, the chatbot dangled the bait of a complimentary career guide, a savvy marketing tactic intended to coax leads into revealing their contact information.

The results:

👉 22,7% shared emails, 👉 15,5% shared phone numbers.

Marketing case studies on how to boost conversion into signup

+70% conversion onto sign-up with a chatbot .

Teaming up with Anthony, co-founder of an  online platform for Instagram account growth , we tackled a case focused on this hiccup: incoming users ducked out before reaching the payment section. So what was the panacea for this marketing problem with room for growth?

They already had an enticing deal in place — an automated message paired with a free audit.

However, the original format of the deal wasn’t exactly cutting it. To amplify the shift from mere browsing to actual signup, we proposed tailoring this offer around the distinct pain points of the customers, and rolling it out as an engaging dialogue with a chatbot. 

Using a chatbot, they got a 70% growth in conversion to users signups. As for the overall funnel performance, it added 5% to the conversion to sign-up.

Thanks! Here’s your copy of 100 growth ideas

How growth hackers engage users to complete registration

In Dashly, we work with Freedom24 — a fintech company. They have a registration issue. After registration in a website form, users should confirm their residential address with a utility bill or any other document. Some of them find this step rather difficult and abandon registration.

Freedom24 marketing team sends them three onboarding emails :

👉 The first one describes the benefits a client gets after opening an account. 👉 The second message highlights the opportunity to get support.  👉 The third email intrigues you with 30 days of the free-of-charge Promo account.

Freedom24 marketers use the same CTA at the beginning and end of each email message to highlight the main action.

At Dashly, we’re collaborating with Freedom24 — a fintech company . They are grappling with a registration snag. Upon registration via the website form, users must verify their residential address with a utility bill or some equivalent document. Some folks find this step rather cumbersome, leading them to ditch the registration process partway.

So, what’s the resolution?

The nifty Freedom24 marketing team sets into motion three onboarding emails for users: 

👉 The initial one elaborates on the perks awaiting a client following account activation.  👉 The subsequent email underscores the provision of assistance.  👉 The final email hooks you with a tantalizing offer of enjoying a free-for-any-charge Promo account for 30 days.

To strike home their focal point, Freedom24 marketers smartly lace the same call-to-action (CTA) at the commencement and termination of each content email to capture attention. This has proved beneficial to both users and the business.

Open Rate: 23.15% CTR: 2,59%

Open Rate: 43.55% CTR: 10,51%

Open Rate: 46.61% CTR: 1,60%

Since 50% of the website traffic goes to the Freedom24 app, its users receive relevant push notifications as well:

Open Rate: 30.47% CTR: 3.65%

Open Rate: 13.55% CTR: 0.57%

Open Rate: 18.18% CTR: 0.65%

Consequently, folks who’ve signed up at Freedom24, courtesy of this strategy incorporated into the email program: 

👉 Recall the importance of initiating an account to commence their investment journey through the platform,  👉 Understand the correct pathway to seek aid for account setup,  👉 Spark an inner urge to expedite the process.

Need more inspo for your growth strategy? We’re here to help 👇

Marketing case studies about conversion to payment 

+30% free-to-paid conversion rate growth with a chatbot on pricing page.

Switching gears to our following collaborator — LeadGen App . They come armed with a form-builder service that empowers SME enterprises, digital agencies, and marketers to craft forms primed for conversion, resulting in an uptick in feedback during lead generation campaigns. Amid a sea of  growth marketing tools , data driven CEO Christopher chose to enlist Dashly platform to tackle the ensuing challenge — boost the conversion rate from free to paid users. One of the solutions we made was launching a chatbot on their pricing page:

Opting for any of the given options, like “How does LeadGen App stand out from other growth marketing services ,” you are greeted with an in-depth response. This comes as linked case content that guides visitors straight to the free account registration step:

At the end of the message customers see a link leading them to the registration and LeadGen App Pro Tariff: 

When visitors look for a certain feature, the chatbot asks them to share an email. Thus, Christopher can contact them later about the chosen feature.

Chatbots truly are a force to reckon with in various B2B growth hacking strategies . Armed with chatbots, Christopher now has a steady inflow of registrations and quality leads to follow up, effectively aligning with his strategy.

The impact : 

A surge in the number of users who interacted with the chatbot on the pricing page significantly boosted sales. This steered the company towards a substantial 31% uptick in sales transactions following the first month of  chatbot implementation in their content.

Read also: 25 Growth Marketing Books to Skyrocket Success

+$2k revenue with video pop-ups growth marketing case 

Before collaboration with Dashly, this online platform for Instagram account growth saw merely 23% of total users invest in their features.

In tandem with the client, we brought to life an onboarding system using Dashly’s toolkit. This system was designed to steer B2B users through the sales funnel, inspiring them to spring for feature purchases. Subsequently, we integrated pop-ups into the business platform, utilizing them to underline the worth of premium features.

In our most triumphant growth marketing experiment, we slipped in a video guide from the company.

The result in a month after the implementation:

• revenue amounted to $2k (the minimum price for a feature is $3, and we got 653 transactions);
• conversion to purchasing a full audit was 8% of impressions.

Read also: Growth marketing vs performance marketing and RevOps vs Sales Ops .

+30% features sales with triggered email for bounced free users

Apart from pop-ups, for a former client, we rolled out email drives designed to reel in users who dropped off the platform without buying features. Each of these campaigns contained a pair of emails: 👉 Email one was promptly delivered right after a user jumped ship; 👉 Email two, crafted to avoid causing annoyance, was scheduled to be sent after a two-day gap. 

If a user snagged a feature post the first email, they were spared the receipt of the second one.

Here’s a glimpse at the top-performing email, boasting a 53% Open Rate. This marketing maneuver, as part of the case, enabled the growth marketing squad to rake in a revenue north of $1.5k.

Overall email performance a month after the implementation:

• revenue — $1.5k (ARPU— $2.5, 574 transactions);
• the Conversion Rate of each email was from 7% to 15%;
• emails generated 30% of all feature sales.

User activation into a product

+33% conversion to the first application among new users (cpa network) .

This firm operates as a  CPA network affiliating bank programs, microfinance entities, insurance, and law enterprises. The company’s income is tightly linked to the activity level at which webmasters spotlight their offers.

Picture this: a user signs up on the site but is left scratching their head about your product’s workings. Typically, they might try to crack the code independently but eventually lose steam and slip into a “dormant” client mode. You can dodge this scenario, though, by immediately encouraging your clients to delve deeper and read about your product’s details.

This activation into the product is a crucial leap on the growth hacking canvas .

The solution?

Chatbot for user onboarding 👉

• Greets the webmaster on the dashboard after the signup. Qualifies users.
• Sends case studies, tool guides, and creative ideas for ads.
• Informs about bonuses.
• 1580 users interacted with the onboarding chatbot;
• The conversion rate of users to the first application has increased by 33%.

Reactivate inactive users

Every enterprise encounters customers who refrain from using its product, bypass the website, and treat communication efforts on different channels with indifference. It’s an age-old truth.

To tackle this hurdle, Freedom24 (fintech project) marketers resort to putting varied hypotheses to the test. For instance, their recent brainwave to “rekindle” interaction with such clients revolved around a combo of  app push notifications plus bonus-centric emails .

Indeed, this growth marketing tactic continues to clock in rigidly for the business, maintaining interaction with customers:

20 euro offer interested 2.95% of users who read this message in the app and 18.58% of clients who read it in email.

Marketing campaigns on how to greet and assist potential customers 

Initiate interaction with a potential client by extending a warm welcome via live chat . Slice up the audience into segments and then craft bespoke triggered messages tailored to each group for this company.

A subtle “How can we help? We’re here for you 😊” might suffice for first-timers. This approach ensures customers know precisely where to turn if they encounter a snag.

For the repeat customers, such as our boomerang buddy Mr. Yakamoto, the style can be more relaxed and chummy. Referencing a customer’s past dealings is an ace up the sleeve in terms of an engagement strategy. It allows you to resume dialogue right where you left off last.

Divvy up the audience and shoot proactive messages across varying stages of the customer journey. It ranks as one of the premier customer engagement strategies in growth marketing! Dashly client OpenCRM got aboard this tactic and witnessed a dazzling 400% surge in the total number of conversations 👇

Pro tip: you can also set up a virtual assistant. In our reality, a chatbot comes in handy for this task. 

Here’s how Dashly’s chatbot became a game-changer in guiding those visiting digital schools towards the right course choice. It’s all about the strategic “Data Science from Scratch” course page. Here, growth marketing tactics kick in and marketers start casual chats with visitors. The goal? To clear up any confusion and highlight the real value of the school’s courses.

No hard sell here — the chatbot doesn’t just blurt out “Sign up for this course” — no sirree. Instead, it gently guides and supports potential students, turning them into hot leads.

The chatbot jumps into action 29 seconds after a customer lands on the “Data Science from Scratch” course page. Its job? To aid SkillFactory customers navigate the maze of education and career decisions. So, there’s no aimless wandering around the website. Customers get the advice they need, right on the get-go, on the same page.

And the results speak for themselves:

⭐ 7.5% of visitors who got the chat message left their emails, ⭐ 5.3% of these visitors even shared their phone numbers.

What is a growth marketing case study?

A growth marketing case study is a detailed narrative that focuses on a company’s strategic use of growth marketing tactics. It chronicles how the company solved a problem, overcame a challenge or seized an opportunity, to drive significant growth or increase conversions.

How are growth marketing case studies useful for my business?

Growth marketing case studies can provide you with valuable insights into effective strategies and tactics used by other businesses. This helps you learn from their successes (or failures), trigger fresh ideas for your own strategies, and improve your decision-making process.

What information can I typically find in a growth marketing case study?

A growth marketing case study usually provides details about the subject company, its marketing objectives, the strategies it implemented, the challenges it faced, and the results it achieved. It may also provide analyses of strategy effectiveness as well as lessons learned.

Where can I find growth marketing case studies?

You can typically find growth marketing case studies on business education websites, marketing blogs, market research sites, and websites of marketing agencies. They can also be found in eBooks, whitepapers, and reports published by software providers or marketing consultancies.

How can I create a growth marketing case study for my business?

Creating a growth marketing case study involves defining your objectives and key measurements, documenting your strategies and their implementations, monitoring and recording results, and analyzing outcomes. It’s crucial to remember that an ideal case study not only highlights successes, but also provides a thoughtful evaluation of what could have been done better.

• Deep dive into growth marketing analytics with Dashly experts
• 22 SaaS growth hack Facebook tactics to boost your business
• Skyrocket your company revenue with a complete guide to  RevOps Revenue Operations
• RevOps tech stack : Guide to the best tools
• Revenue operations metrics : 10 metrics and KPIs to track your performance
• RevOps best practices : 13 tactics to implement this year
• Top 10 product led growth software your competitors use in 2023
• 10 product led growth companies that boost their development right now
• Growth marketing framework : Battle-tested insights from Dashly experts

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29 Growth Marketing Case Studies

by Samuel J. Woods

More than anything else, I regularly come across people asking for growth marketing case studies .

It’s one thing to have a list of “growth hacks” and a general sense of growth marketing methodology and process.

But quite another to learn how other companies went from zero to traction, then scale and growth.

Everyone wants to discover what other companies have done successfully. And see what’s possible, across channels, growth processes , “growth hacking”, and growth teams .

But uncovering hidden growth opportunities takes time, effort, analysis, and constant testing.

So, I analyzed and studied how a number of companies did it.

What you’ll see in this article are a wide range of companies—SaaS, apps, marketplaces, e-commerce, platforms.

Many went from small to big, fast.

Here are 29 growth marketing case studies.

Growth Marketing Case Studies Reveal a Variety of Growth Paths

Given the spread in types of companies, you can expect to learn about various growth strategies, tactics, and the path they took toward exponential growth.

Some took years, others took months. But one way or another, they tapped into a market, a need, with a product or service that solved their problems.

Growth Marketing Case Study #1: Etsy

From June 2005 to 2022, craft super seller Etsy went from a concept to nearly 14 billion in sales (in 2021), including more than 4 million sellers and almost 40 million active buyers.

Now, Etsy is a publicly-traded Nasdaq company (ETSY) with a $13 billion market cap.

How did they do it? Here’s the snapshot.

A Needed Change: Craft sellers were aggravated that eBay was so cumbersome, stingy, and seemed to lack care for sellers. These factors created an environment that was supercharged for a platform like Etsy.

They Weren’t Lazy: A marketplace is unique because it requires both buyers and sellers to be successful.

Without awesome products, there would be no need for buyers.

The founders went to every artisan flea market and craft fair to introduce them to the craft-specific selling platform.

Finding Buyers: Etsy was able to tap into a rise in the craft industry fueled by a renaissance of handmade crafters.

Some of these early product creators had built an audience but hadn’t interconnected or listed their items through an eCommerce platform.

Growing Organically: Typically, Etsy only pays for around 2-7% of their traffic (which is insane). This “grassroots” growth comes from getting out of the way of their sellers.

With 150 third-party apps and sellers who are empowered to grow their own business as they see fit, getting out of the way has led to the exponential growth of both sellers and buyers.

Continued Growth: Since its IPO, Etsy has continued to grow rapidly. Now, growth comes primarily through experimentation and a growth marketing strategy handled by teams of people.

Split testing, coming up with experiments, breaking down features, and changing small elements to gauge usefulness and user response has fueled growth.

Key Takeaways from Etsy:

• Having a keen sense of market needs can lead to initial traction and validation.
• One of the best ways to see growth in a new online business is to promote it through physical events to the public.
• Provide the right tool(s) and network with key players (that have an audience that needs your stuff).
• Figuring out ways to empower users to become brand ambassadors is a key to long-term and sustainable growth.
• Large amounts of growth are possible at every level. Strategies may change, and teams may grow, but organized experimentation, failing fast, and setting up processes will help you succeed.

Growth Marketing Case Study #2: Nasty Gal

From 2006 until 2008, Nasty Gal was an eBay business that bought and sold vintage goods for its founder (Sophia Amoruso) to try and make a living.

In 2008, she opened a stand-alone e-Commerce site, and by 2011, it hit $28 million in sales.

The following year, Nasty Gal reported $100 million in revenue and began experimenting with physical locations.

Here’s the brief on how.

Consistent Persistence: Amoruso started an eBay store (called Nasty Gal Vintage) back in 2006 to pay rent. She realized a heavy desire among millennials to dress in vintage clothes due to the unique styles of previous eras.

When she hit what would be a detrimental blow to most (her eBay store was shut down), it didn’t stop her.

That persistence led to an independent site with $28 million in revenue by 2011 (all from vintage clothing arbitrage).

Leveraging Platforms: Using share-worthy style, high margin vintage finds, and a few local models, Nasty Gal built a large following using eBay and social platforms like Myspace (well before Facebook ads).

Her strategy was simple in the early days. She made her models not only look but feel awesome and set out to “…sell things for more than you bought them.”

Perceived Value: Without even knowing what it was, Sophia knew that if she positioned clothing a certain way, it would drive up the price of the early eBay auctions.

Taking decades-old clothing and styling it on the right college-aged model with thoughtful positioning and accessories meant large profits early on and continues today. The way you present can alter the way products are perceived.

Initial Testing: Early eBay was a split-testing ground for Nasty Gal. Testing everything, including the headlines on auctions, the images available, product styles, and putting one article of clothing on several different models to try what hit and missed.

This experimentation led to gains week after week and a store that constantly performed better.

Raising the Stakes: Once the eBay store was shut down, the site came to life with a hefty social following and loyal fans. Selling out of merchandise led to Amoruso seeking a Nasty Gal line.

Through continued experimentation, social presence, and sticking to its core audience, the company has seen incredible growth.

With $100 million in revenue (2015), $65 million in VC funds last year, and two physical locations, the growth is set to continue.

Growth Marketing Case Study #3: Growth Hackers

This look at Growth Hackers will speak strongly to the frustrated founder who has hit a growth plateau.

The company seemingly stalled at 90,000 users. Then, after a little focus and only 11 weeks, that number reached over 150,000.

Get ready for a straight dose of data as we look at how they did it.

High Tempo Time: Testing different growth strategies had slowed, and goals weren’t being met. These two factors led to a stagnant user growth chart and a company not living up to its name. Recognizing this was a huge first step to setting a goal of three experiments per week.

Defining Experiments: The types of things Growth Hackers identify as experiments aren’t just a simple split test (even though those are included). New initiatives, new/revamped product releases, and other things were included to test.

It Takes a Village: A team of people was gathered from around the company to be involved with generating the ideas for experimentation.

The Hackers cited that if one person is in charge of the idea process, the number of experiments to be tested will run out without seeing the type of growth that is desired.

Their efforts resulted in hundreds of ideas that had to be prioritized by potential benefit and ease/speed of implementation.

Pace Yourself (and Meet Often): Some of the experiments took more effort than others (which is normal). However, when these larger tests were run, it caused the crew not to hit their three-a-week goal.

This problem required that they set weekly meetings to identify problems and methodically sort through their experiment list.

The Process Works: Growth Hackers was able to grow the number of users (62,000) within 11 weeks. That same number of users took 32 weeks for the company to attain during launch.

Growth Marketing Case Study #4: Slack

If you love growth stories, you’ve heard of slack. This would-be game company that turned its focus to team communication has received an incredible amount of attention.

From 15,000 users at launch (February 2014) to over 10 million daily active users now, their story is nothing short of amazing.

Here are the highlights of their early traction.

Defining a New Tool: For slack, defining itself was an issue at first. It was when they defined an entire software category that existed(but really didn’t) that they found their focus.

Offices around the world were using dozens of different tools to communicate with other team members and colleagues which made slack a no-brainer to create.

Selling the Dream: Slack is a useful tool, but offices had to be convinced they really needed it (borderline couldn’t live without it).

Since they were able to identify a whole new market, they also had to deal with educating their ideal customers and convincing them it was a need.

Once they were able to get this across, traction came like a flood.

Focus is Key: Early on, the slack founders were influenced to pick out the software’s key features and just do those as well as they possibly could.

Winning big where they won instead of even focusing across the board.

Features weren’t wholeheartedly denied, but an incredible level of care was spent perfecting file sharing and search synchronization (incredibly important to highly connected teams).

Once offices saw the results, word of mouth caused growth to catch fire again.

Give it Away: Slack followed suit of some of the most popular organization apps and offered a free service that was incredibly useful. Teams who saw that value would get the better options to a tune of a 30% conversion rate (free to paid).

A freemium model was a huge factor in the early growth that brought all of the media and VC attention, but the app itself kept paying customers.

Smooth Onboarding: Since it is a useful tool, slack had to be careful not to create a cumbersome learning curve for users.

The development of a simple and intuitive interface that allows teams to be created seamlessly and communicate immediately helped more people hit the ground running.

Growth Marketing Case Study #5: New Relic

New Relic is an analytics company that reveals the deepest secrets of cloud software and apps.

From their start in 2008 until now, they’ve managed to gain 15,400 clients (as of 2020) and monitor over 1 million websites and 1 billion (with a b) apps.

Their customers range from startups to Fortune 500s and government agencies. Their growth is incredible.

So how’d they do it? Here’s how.

Solve a Problem: The basic rule of entrepreneurship is to solve a need, and New Relic knew that they would have to create something great for a market as picky as a development community.

Early traction can almost all be traced by the quality of their product and its usefulness, making their focus on providing an excellent tool worthwhile.

Create Salespeople: Early marketing efforts were heavily focused on not only selling to large development firms but specifically Ruby on Rails programmers.

This approach was different in the sense that New Relic went after people instead of agencies, leading to popularity among those who would actually use their product.

Things like t-shirts for users and meetups led to a sense of community all built around their excellent product.

Give It Away: A freemium model would give skittish developers a chance to view their program’s analytics, enticing them to upgrade to paid.

New Relic’s marketing was simple, convince prospects to sign up and deploy to get a t-shirt and let the product do the rest.

Spending Money: In addition to shirts, the company is spending money on social ads and traffic at a high rate to gain relevant traffic. The brand is also employing multiple tools and SaaS products to gather the data they need to grow even faster.

Addictive Personality: With the product just being so dang valuable, their customers actually get dependent on the insights gained from it.

This need for the data has led to an almost unheard of negative churn rate (meaning their customers spend more year over year).

This rare occurrence happens due to the amount of data created and the space taken up on servers. Talk about growth.

Growth Marketing Case Study #6: Tinder

Shrouded in scandal and misinformation, tinder has a truly fascinating story.

Their growth has come from a mix of newsworthy attention as well as innovation in a stale and competitive market.

From the start in late 2012 until now, they’ve garnered 75 million monthly active users.

All those people use the iconic “swipe” feature over 1 billion times per day.

How much they’re worth and how much trouble they’ve seen maybe cloudy, but the best story is in their growth.

Here’s the snapshot.

Ground Game: Online dating is a notoriously tough niche, but tinder knew what it needed to succeed.

A large number of females using the app would then entice guys to join, but the supply of potential dates had to be there first.

They met this problem from sorority houses, getting girls to sign up one dorm at a time. Next, you just had to tell the college guys there were girls.

Make It Fun: The need for loads of users in each town led to the gamification of the tinder app itself.

By creating the ability to keep “swiping,” you create a sense of wonder and hope that you’ll hit the jackpot with another flick or two. This feature has been a huge factor in the overall success.

Make It Better: Tinder was able to not only create an app in a crowded market, they were able to highlight some common issues with the giants and make them better. Ladies are less likely to get heckled by countless heathens with features built into the app, making more women use (and even enjoy) the app.

Keep Going: To keep people’s profiles fresh and used, tinder continues to add features and tweak them into a more social experience (without losing its core value).

Add-ons like ‘matchmaker’, which allows someone to introduce two friends through the app, or ‘moments’, which allows a user to share edited visuals with matches.

Growth Marketing Case Study #7: Stripe

If you want to create a company that attracts investors like a bug zapper on a front porch, listen to stripe’s story.

A couple of guys (with previous success) managed to create an online payment processor that attracted the attention of the guys who made one of the first (PayPal).

With a current market cap of more than $94 billion, Stripe processes billions more every year.

How’d it happen? Let’s see.

Addressing Elephants: While payment processors existed, they were incredibly cumbersome.

Connectivity and customers were growing at a far greater rate than the ability to take payments. This obvious problem led the three founders to have a simple goal, make it easy for ecommerce businesses to take payments.

Being Different: Figuring out the frustration of other popular processors (PayPal, Google), Stripe was able to develop a platform that was business friendly.

Features that set them apart included the ability for customers to stay on the seller’s site for the entire transaction, and reducing backend features that were confusing and difficult to navigate.

Close Customer Base: Stripe used its surroundings to find it’s first loyal customers. Since the company was part of a community of companies from an incubator, they were able to use that as leverage (most of them needed a payment processor).

Organic Growth: The product spoke well to online business owners and received incredible word of mouth exposure during it’s early days.

To accelerate this advocacy, stripe sent care packages, including shirts and stickers, to developers who used the product. There were also meetups and community events that fostered loyalty.

Constant Improvement: Stripe knows who their customers are and have continuously created new solutions for developers to keep them happy and talking.

From offering specialized support for all popular programming languages, to adding new features, there is always a better stripe in development. They’ve even begun to tackle mobile payments which almost ensures more growth in the coming months.

Growth Marketing Case Study #8: Spotify

Spotify. You’ve probably heard the name. You’re likely one of the 406 million users.

The company was valued at $10 billion in just six years on the market.

Now, it’s publicly traded with a more than $20 billion market cap.

This story is incredible. We’ll take a quick look at the key ingredients to this explosive growth.

Be Different: Music is a giant industry, and the competition couldn’t be tougher.

However, there was a gaping hole in the market. Spotify launched in the U.S. with the simple, yet powerful difference of all the music you want for a low monthly fee.

From a per album and track pricing method to unlimited is almost the definition of disruption. Growth was immediate.

Deliver the Goods: There were other services, but with no options. These early versions were more like radio and lacked to ability to create a soundtrack to your life.

Spotify allowed people to be in control of their music, a feature that many would pay for instead of being fed music.

Free Growth: The freemium model is one often used to help disrupt industries. Spotify does this by delicately placing ads and limiting features as not to upset users or be classified as pirating (70% of ad income goes to song rights holders).

Multiple Launches: Before launching in the U.S. in 2011 (partnering with Facebook which was another huge proponent to early growth), the company beta launched and then officially launched in multiple European countries. These tiered released allowed them to hone their message and buyer personas.

U.S. and Facebook: Launching in the U.S. (after finding their voice) caused Spotify to explode, increasing web traffic well over a million visitors a month within four months time.

Their partnership with Facebook and integrating with the social network garnered another exponential growth session gaining 1 million new users within one month.

Growth Marketing Case Study #9: Airbnb

Necessity may be the mother of all invention, but AirBnB almost didn’t succeed.

Sometimes it takes real tenacity to see growth and it worked out well for the lodging giant.

Now worth $100 billion and responsible for more stays than anyone else in the hospitality industry, this company has seen itself through tough times to sit on the top of an industry in record time.

We’ll give you the highlights.

Hustle Fund: Well before their 450 million in funding, the founders of AirBnB had to raise their own capital. Creating a couple of politically geared cereals (Obama-O’s and Cap’n MCcain’s) the team was able to raise 30k of crucial funds.

Using Your Skills: One of the most questionable factors to Airbnb’s growth is their pillaging of Craigslist.

These gifted developers engineered a solution that was able to pirate both visitors and rental listers from the popular community site.

This tactic isn’t easy and is borderline taboo, but was used to create the largest vacation property site on the internet.

Do What You Gotta: Early on, too many properties were struggling with revenue.

The problem was traced to bad pictures which created less interest. The solution was very hands on; renting an expensive camera and taking high quality photos of every property in New York.

The income doubled and eventually became an expensive (yet effective) program. AirBnB now employees 2000 freelance photographers and revenue has hit exponential growth since the program’s introduction.

Removing Fear: There are obvious concerns when renting your home to strangers (and vice versa).

The company realized that removing fears of those who were interested in using AirBnB (yet hadn’t rented or listed) was a crucial element of growth.

Introducing social integration allowed visitors to see connections and social proof of those who had stayed in a particular location.

Going WorldWide: With so many beautiful locations around the world, AirBnB has started to see another round of huge growth from international stays. This outlet will also be a focus for continued increase in the coming years.

Growth Marketing Case Study #10: WhatsApp

WhatsApp started as a company that stuck to its guns to do one thing (allowing people to message inexpensively) and do it without ads.

This initial goal helped them attract users for the messaging app quickly, but had them second guessing any funding.

After some tenacious VC’s the app now boasts over two billion users and 1 million more daily!

Here’s the brief story of how it happened.

Pivot Power: Most companies don’t reach success offering their service they way it started. WhatsApp started as an app to let others know you weren’t available by phone. This idea failed to catch fire, until push notifications were invented.

This new feature allowed WhatsApp users to alert friends of their status instantly across the world, giving life to the idea for a messaging app.

Principle Power: The app’s founder has a note taped to his desk professing “no ads” among other things. Their product doesn’t use ads and is free for the first year($0.99 cents/year thereafter).

These core principles are still alive and set WhatsApp apart from dozens of competitors aiming for ad revenue and other gimmicks.

Pricing Power: WhatsApp is such a low-cost alternative to many other carriers and services in other countries that international growth is faster than most other famous startups combined (Facebook included). Pricing to scale is a popular feature among startups.

Timing Power: WhatsApp had expenses for the free service that required a paid option. This problem led to the $1 price point it has today, but the timing of the paid option came with an ability to share pictures which meant growth stayed steady.

Facebook Power: The app has been purchased by Facebook, which has more than added to the growth (to the tune of 25 million users a month). However, the change does come with skepticism due to Facebook’s privacy concerns.

Growth Marketing Case Study #11: LinkedIn

Executives, middle class job seekers, and networking connectors love LinkedIn.

Within a year of going live (2003) the networking social platform had half a million users, and the growth didn’t slow down there.

It’s now a publicly traded company (LNKD) that boasts well over 810 million users and thousands of employees worldwide.

Here’s the quick look at their growth story.

Start With a Need: The need for quality prospects on both the employer and employee sides of the job coin warranted a solution.

While there were other options in the early 2000’s, none offered a place for executives and decision makers to find the connections they needed. The opportunity that LinkedIn capitalized on.

Niching Down: While the startup did find resistance in the beginning (tech bubble trouble), they were able to focus on Silicon Valley and find executives eager to fill their sparse staffs with qualified talent and connect with others.

This choice would eventually garner the acceptance of the professional community.

Not So Free: While LinkedIn did remain free, they weren’t making significant revenue from ads. When they added paid features like job listings, subscriptions, and more recently and ad platform, their revenue began to take shape.

Focus on Strength: Monitoring analytics allowed LinkedIn to notice that they were very good at engaging the initial traffic reaching their site, but not as good connecting with a cold email audience. This fact led them to focus on their homepage conversions rather than email, a difficult but effective solution that led to exponential growth.

Testing to Virality: Before the company would concentrate on revenue it had to secure its growth. To do this there was a heavy period of good old growth hacking experiments, tests, and analytics until they reached a planned viral loop.

Audience Before Business: Building a large and engaged community of users before concentrating on revenue gave LinkedIn the opportunity to build a business model around an audience they already knew (and had in their pocket).

This knowledge has led to acquisitions (Slideshare) and content platforms (Pulse) that are driving continued growth.

Growth Marketing Case Study #12: Yelp

If you love a good not-so-underdog story, then Yelp’s story is probably one you’ll enjoy.

In a world of social review sites, yelp managed to rise above some big branded names and boasts over 95 million reviews.

The site received an average of 85 million views in the fourth quarter of 2015 on mobile devices alone.

It started from humble San Fran beginnings and has gone on to become a publicly traded company worth around $5 billion.

Openly Different: Yelp decided early on that reviews wouldn’t be anonymous (like the other review sites). Instead, users have profiles and are empowered to share more reviews becoming a valued member of a community.

Fostering Quality: Other review sites are often full of overly negative and one time reviewers. Yelp has created a system to reward regular reviewers with titles, ranks and other goodies to encourage a constant and accurate stream of reliable reviewers.

Start Small: Starting in the local San Francisco scene, the Yelp team was able to fix issues and gather a tight knit community. Afterwards, it was easier to take on city after city which made growth naturally exponential.

Genuinely User Friendly: So many review sites have to cater to advertisers. The problem with this model is that most ads are for the companies being reviewed (an obvious conflict of interest). However, Yelp has managed to keep the focus on a democratic review system and is seemingly unbiased.

Natural Growth: When you can create a user generated environment that allows visitors to genuinely find the best place to spend their money, you will have the type of growth that Yelp has seen. This growth has in turn spread to the businesses that deserve it. Local places that have the reviews see a jump in revenue.

Growth Marketing Case Study #13: GitHub

Programmers and developers love the idea of open source, but had a cumbersome process to add value and create.

Seeing this need has led GitHub to an incredible amount of success.

From initial traction of 100,000 users in a year, to now having over 73 million active users with thousands more every day.

Here’s how it took shape.

Make Something Easier: The problem with using open source software was the process of downloading, making changes, and then actually seeing them used.

Essentially, it was the entire process that was broken. Creating a hub for git repositories that could easily be worked on and shared was the answer (namely GitHub).

Let It Ride: With developers loving the now easier (but not perfect) way to develop open source, it became a place that offered many new programs.

This supply led to those seeking (demand) and you had a rapid growth process that would eventually be a full audience of people developing solutions and others who needed them.

Making Money: Startups that offer a freemium model often times run into trouble getting users to pay for premium memberships. GitHub had a natural solution come to them. Businesses and other developers wanted a private repository and were willing to pay for it.

This structure created an entirely different membership that the company could charge to use.

Open Popularity: Since open source software is a huge deal, GitHub was in the perfect place to become the poster child of a movement. This position was in some ways deliberate, but in all ways has led to crazy user gains.

Fast Delivery: GitHub doesn’t linger on new features. The developers find a way to deliver things quickly and then work to improve it after feedback. This quality has led to continued growth and loyalty from existing users.

Growth Marketing Case Study #14: Upworthy

While Upworthy may not be a SaaS app, or other type of software tool, its story is just as grandiose.

Scrolling through your Facebook feed you’ve seen posts from this popular viral site (or others who are emulating their success).

Endearing stories, funny videos, or multitudes of other entertaining posts are created to influence social users to visit the site.

Shortly after their launch (in 2012), Upworthy was seeing traffic to the tune of almost 90 million visitors a month (by November 2013).

Here’s how they did it.

Fast Changes: Originally, Upworthy wanted to capitalize on an election year and cover mainly political topics.

The team quickly realized that this material wasn’t getting them the traction that they needed, and switched to other topics that were already popular.

Strictly Wants: Instead of providing a need, Upworthy provides the types of content that people seem to naturally gravitate toward. Instead of text based articles, they concentrate on visual content that speaks to human emotions and behaviors.

Solid Formula: While they can’t bottle virality, they sure are good at it. Their success has come from a solid formula of curating content from around the web as well as a proprietary system of editing and evaluating it.

It essentially comes down to using data to find the content, tweaking (again by using the data), and analyzing it after it’s published (creating more data to use).

Conversions: Without a steady base of social traffic, the site wouldn’t have nearly as many visitors. To gain a steady increase of likes and followers, the team has had to A/B test various methods. These experiments have led the site’s facebook page to nearly 5 million likes since launch.

Emotions Driven: Since the click is performed by a human and the content isn’t a need, emotions play a major role in getting a visitor to the site.

The need to compel leads to tests of material, but more importantly headlines.

The click is the most important aspect so those few words that are shown are the most vital aspect (along with the image).

Future Growth: With mobile being the future, the brand has made changes to make mobile users just as click happy. In addition to mobile, the international market is ripe, but needs different forms of content and more testing is needed to see the growth already achieved in the states.

Growth Marketing Case Study #15: HubSpot

Unless you’ve been under a rock over the past few years, you’ve heard the term “inbound marketing”.

You can thank HubSpot for that. On top of crafting a new term, they’ve become a billion dollar company.

Their story is great for those who have high dollar products, but still want to see rapid growth.

With each client bringing in an average of over $6000, they’ve managed to see incredible gains in a short time.

Here’s how.

Inbound Marketing: It’s no surprise that HubSpot practices what it preaches and uses inbound as an incredible source of growth.

Having multiple blogs (that provide intense levels of value) and a great overall compelling online presence, has given them a ton of success (and continues to do so).

Free Stuff: There are few other sources online (at least for marketing) where you can find so much value completely for free.

Guides, courses, templates, you name it and it’s there. One of their most successful drivers is the free website grader (it search 4 million sites in five years).

Tailored CTA: HubSpot offers multiple types of content (as mentioned), but if you read a blog post, your offer is going to be catered to that topic. Most B2B companies have one guide, whitepaper or resource for their ideal clients.

HubSpot continues their content marketing with content specific calls to action which increases conversions (and growth).

Webinars: Early adopters in the webinar game, HubSpot was able to tap into internet savvy companies and give them free tips in an online presentation.

Webinars are a key proponent of their social growth as well as the overall success of their brand.

Growth Marketing Case Study #16: Evernote

If your company is fledging or even on the brink of shutting down, maybe you can derive a little inspiration from Evernote.

After almost closing their virtual doors, they’ve went on to gain 75 million users and a lot of VC attention (now 225 million).

They had to start somewhere and so do you, so let’s see what factors led to their success.

Surviving Trouble: Evernote was born in the midst of a world of social and new websites (not apps). This early trouble led them to only have a few weeks worth of funds in their accounts at any one time.

Fortunately, a lone user loved the product and at the last available minute wired enough funds to keep them going.

Good and Bad Timing: Evernote launched in the modern app era (2008). There were millions of users ready to download, and not a whole lot of other apps which helped early growth.

The team would also work hard to be in the new app stores on the first day opened. The funding factor wasn’t as good with the economic situation being so awful.

Useful and Impressive: Evernote desired to create an app that could act as your memory, storing anything of any size from anywhere.

On top of that, they wanted an interface that was easy to use, functional and enjoyable. Making something useful and easy are always key metrics for growth.

Freemium: One of the early adopters of the freemium model, Evernote used a basic free version of the app to entice new users.

The genuine usefulness of the product has led to a financial success to the tune of a billion dollar valuation. The value of the product increases with use, and so can the revenue.

Brand Ambassadors: Many companies hope to create advocates for their brand, but Evernote does it. Naming a select few from prominent industries as ambassadors for the app has led to incredible word of mouth and user success.

Meetups are held where the ambassador answers questions and shares the usefulness of the product in that particular field.

Continuous Improvement: In an effort to keep growth levels, Evernote has continuously put out new features and entire apps that make their initial success more useful. Every new product or acquisition has the same goal: to be useful, and beautifully functional which in the end can sell itself (with a little testing).

Growth Marketing Case Study #17: SnapChat

Sometimes your products aren’t used the way you intended and it can lead to problems.

The Snapchat founders understand that, but it didn’t lead to their growth stalling.

In fact, the popular picture/video sharing app has went from starting in 2011 to now having about 300 million users.

Provide Freedom: So often many young people feel the need for expression that can’t be obtained on most social channels. SnapChat offers users the ability to post a very expressive product that is live in real time with no lasting ramifications.

The freedom that comes from the ability to just hop on and share a moment (that won’t last) is a compelling feature that drives both engagement and growth.

Controversial Growth: Meant for colleges, the app found its start in high schools. It seems teenagers were attracted to the idea of messages that could be shared with friends and not be seen by anyone else (and no evidence).

However, the app received negative (potentially unwarranted) early press centered around the new “sexting” phenomenon. Growth continued.

Competitive Help: Facebook saw the popularity of Snapchat as a threat and created their own similar app (called Poke). The attention only gave more fuel to SnapChat’s popularity sending their growth even higher while Poke declined.

Natural Engagement: Due to the nature of the app, messages sent between users are rarely unopened. The wonder of what could be inside makes most open the messages they receive and compels them to send their own. This engagement also creates an excellent word of mouth.

Social Acceptance: More recently, heavy hitters in the online community (namely Gary Vaynerchuck among others) have begun to adopt the platform. This popularity has online audiences running to the platform and sure to equal growth.

Growth Marketing Case Study #18: Uber

Continued growth on an exponential level is a rare thing when it comes to billion dollar brands.

Uber continues to amaze, more than doubling growth year after year even after they boast a $63 billion market cap.

Not to mention they’ve done all of this since 2009 starting out as a small local service.

Let’s take a brief look at how they accomplished so much.

Monopoly Buster: Cabs are terrible. Uber fixes that problem. While it’s not perfect, this new transportation method has become the very face of modern business disruption.

The added bonus of shaking an industry is not only the joy of being useful, but the media attention (negative and positive) that further fuels growth.

Strategic Launch: If you’re going to provide a service, it’s best to give it to those with platforms. Choosing San Francisco to be the first Uber city was a strategic choice.

A place of notoriously bad taxis and people who loved new technology and had blogs and audiences of their own (people like Tim Ferris).

Driver Love: Obviously, the travel brings the revenue. However, Uber understands that they are a liaison service between two parties (one being the driver). With better pay and putting laid off drivers back to work they created instants advocates in each new city.

Focused Launches: Each city isn’t just an expansion for Uber, it’s a new place to dominate. Taking each new location seriously has led to continued growth.

This tactic doesn’t mean slow growth, they have expanded rapidly as well as meticulously across the globe.

Testimonials: Word of mouth is still one of the biggest growth drivers in the world, but Uber gets it from those who have used their service. By someone sharing their experience with someone else (a testimonial) it becomes even more compelling.

Uber also gives free rides to have more and more people telling their story.

Creating Wow: Uber loves testing different experiences for their customers. Trying to ever improve the ride has led to some great experiments and an almost guaranteed good time across town (which creates more testimonial situations).

Growth Marketing Case Study #19: Belly

Everyone hates it when customers leave. The average churn rate of a company can destroy growth.

Belly Card started out to help small and medium sized businesses increase the retention rate of clients.

A unique business model that isn’t well known, but has over 1 million users and 5000 business clients.

The neatest part about them, is that it all happened in about 15 months!

Market Research: A key driver to growth is starting with something valuable. A lot of times it’s a hunch from a founder, but not in the case of Belly. The team hit the pavement and talked with hundreds of merchants to figure out how to improve customer loyalty for local businesses.

Getting It In: After creating the product to help, they got to work. Selling in person, on the phone, and other “traditional” methods helped get them their early traction and user base. Belly worked Chicago until people and merchants were talking about their service.

City by City: With a few successful city launches under their belt, the Belly team was able to roll out that strategy in new cities with the same success. Soon after, the word of mouth took off as users and merchants loved the engaging elements (gamification) that the product provided.

Selling by Data: While national chains of independent owners are a lucrative market, selling the owners equals a slowed rate of growth and selling to the chain may not be as effective either.

However, Belly was able to take the data of the independent owners that were already using the programs (places like Subways and Chic-Fil-A’s) to entice the chains to use the service.

This process would increase sales for Belly and (in most cases) chains/franchisors as well as garner loyalty for the owners themselves (win-win-win).

Growth Marketing Case Study #20: Square

Software companies can be one of the most attractive-looking ventures, but Square was able to do something different.

The company applied a payment processing company behind an attractive and conversation-starting trend centered around their hardware.

The growth is amazing, from starting in 2009 to being one of the most popular small business payment processors with more than 8000 employees.

Here’s a quick look at how they gained traction.

Needed Change: Square makes it possible for anyone to take credit payments. With the hardware (see next point), it had never been easier for small businesses to take multiple forms of payments and sell more stuff.

Whether it would be at flea markets, or in their home office everyone could take credit. Something that was needed and wanted and that created an environment for growth.

Physical Hardware: One of the most revolutionary things about Square is the invention of it’s iconic credit card processing hardware. It’s simple, easy and opens up credit payments to a world of entrepreneurs and business owners.

The company is still doing this with iPad integrations and register POS systems today. The wow factor and talking points definitely helped them with early traction.

Happy Customers: In addition to small business owners getting an easy way to take multiple forms of payments, they like it for other reasons too. Not only is the product useful, but incredibly attractive and hip.

Business owners often know others like them, fueling the number of people who are using the new device (and the processor of course).

Founder Foundation: Jack Dorsey (also cofounded Twitter) was an obvious piece to the early growth of the platform. It wasn’t just his name, but his approach. He wrote a list of those who may be interested in funding the startup.

The list laid out 140 reasons why the company may fail as well as their counterpoints. The gimmick worked and it has garnered significant investment and popularity.

Growth Marketing Case Study #21: Canva

Back in the day, if you needed to come up with a flyer, a banner, or any design and you weren’t a designer, you had two options.

You could hire a designer or you could go through the painful process of doing it yourself on PowerPoint, or worse, use Word art.

Today you have Canva, which completely revolutionized basic graphic design for the average person.

Here’s how they’re growing.

Making it easy for everyone: There have always been other options for creating quick designs. But they had several shortcomings either in the way of UI, price, or ease of use. And these were the main things that Canva focused on since it launched.

The user interface was intuitive and had usable templates. It was web-based, so there was no need to download and install the software.

And most importantly, the free version was useful. So it was no surprise that Canva quickly became the de facto tool for anyone looking to do some quick design tasks.

Simple Pricing combined with a clear value proposition: An important aspect of Canva is that it made it easy for its users to choose to upgrade to the paid version.

The free version served the purpose of letting first-time users familiarize themselves with the platform until it became a part of their workflow. When that happened, it was a simple choice for users to upgrade to the paid version for additional features.

Also worth mentioning is that compared to their competition at the time, their pricing was in a goldilocks area for their key users.

From 0 to 15 million users: Canva’s first two years saw an impressive amount of growth. They went from 0 to 2 million monthly users.

And after seven years, they reached 15 million users, 300 thousand pro users, and are now a 3.2 billion-dollar company. To reach this massive amount of growth, they went about it with the tried and true formula of having a great product match for their audience and consistently investing in paid ads across the usual social media channels.

Growth Marketing Case Study #22: Airbnb

The word disruption is used fairly loosely nowadays. But in reality, very few businesses disrupt an industry.

Airbnb is one of the few which have. And in doing so, they grew from a three-person operation making a couple of hundred bucks a week to now reporting over 1 billion in quarterly revenue.

Today, Airbnb is a 35 billion dollar behemoth with hundreds of employees and a global presence.

Here are 6 takeaways on how Airbnb grew its business.

• Test your idea and iterate. Initially, the founders tried to make extra money by renting a spare air mattress. They took the same concept and iterated until they found the winning formula.
• They focused on finding what the bottleneck to their growth was. At first, it was about the images of the properties; later on, it became payment processing. As they kept on growing, new growth problems were solved.
• They bootstrapped and started small. Many new businesses want to immediately get funding to accelerate their growth. This is not necessarily wrong. However, AirBnb already was bringing in profits and had a working product by the time they took on venture capital. This made it significantly easier for them to raise capital and acquire investors.
• They took over the industry by being themselves. Airbnb didn’t set out to compete with hotels directly. In the beginning, they offered a more affordable option for travelers, but what really set them apart was the fact that they were selling the experience of living in the place you were visiting instead of being a tourist as you would be with a traditional hotel.
• They take care of their customers. One of the critical aspects of Airbnb is how the platform takes care of all its users. Airbnb offers a big insurance policy to their hosts so that they can have the confidence to rent out their properties.
• Upsells and cross-sells have become a major source of revenue. Instead of limiting themselves, they decided to listen to their customers and incentivize their hosts to offer additional services that would help them increase their income. A win, win, win type of deal.

Growth Marketing Case Study #23: Koala

In 2015, Koala made waves as one of the most successful businesses to launch in the recently created direct-to-consumer mattress space.

It quickly grew up to $13 million in sales in its first 12 months of operating.

During their first year, the team behind Koala did something that let them accelerate their growth. They had a laser focus on the digital marketing channels that brought them the most results.

Here’s a brief breakdown of how they went about strategizing their growth.

Have a great product and an amazing offer: To start off, Koala launched with a great product that was highly competitive compared with the traditional market. But what set them apart was the quality of the offer.

The offer was miles ahead of what their competition had at the moment. This is where free delivery, pickup, and a 120 free trial with no strings attached set them apart.

This amount of confidence in their product helped with making it easier for new customers to choose the new and innovative mattress company.

Laser-focus on what works: During their first year, Koala approached their marketing with a laser focus on one marketing channel: Facebook.

Instead of spreading themselves thin by diluting their budget across multiple channels, they decided to concentrate their efforts on dominating their chosen platform.

They did this by investing heavily in creating exciting and eye-catching ads and making the most out of Facebook’s retargeting capabilities.

This is why if you spent any amount of time browsing Facebook back in 2015, you probably came across an ad or two from Koala.

Make it easy for your customers to talk about you: The direct-to-consumer mattress business was still new and didn’t have widespread adoption back in 2015.

To address the novelty aspect of their business model, they relied heavily on having established processes that made it easy for their new customer to share their experiences.

Customer testimonials make a huge amount of difference for new businesses. They essentially shorten the amount of time needed for a new customer that is still on the fence about whether or not they want to try a new product.

Growth Marketing Case Study #24: Hip Kids

Hip Kids is a children’s toy company that carved out a niche for itself by offering a more high-quality and durable alternative to the primarily disposable toys that are commonplace in the market.

This singular attention to detail and alignment to their core values helped them take their company to the 7-figure mark in sales.

But they reached a point where, even though they had a healthy marketing budget, they just weren’t seeing the growth they expected.

This is what they did to triple the revenue and spur growth for their already well-established brand.

Define the root cause of the problem: To understand the root cause of the problem, a little context is necessary.

HipKids started as an eBay store about a decade ago. They started small, and as the demand for their products grew, they were able to open up their own website and even open up a few physical locations for their brand.

Due to their organic growth, they added additional pieces to their marketing one at a time, and often from different agencies.

First they did their website, then they added an in-house designer, then they went with a PPC agency to get targeted traffic, and finally, they also invested in their SEO.

As you can imagine, after investing in each new marketing channel, they saw an initial spur of growth that quickly stagnated. It was this fragmented approach to their marketing strategy that made it difficult for their campaigns to work in unison and build up the momentum they needed to reach their growth goals.

Efficiency and optimization are key: Once the problem was defined, it became a matter of restructuring their marketing team to make sure that it was all moving in the same direction.

With a brand new marketing structure set in place, then it was possible for the marketing team to work on optimizing their campaigns and iterating over time to attract new traffic and improve conversion rates. This is what ultimately let HipKids triple its revenue.

Growth Marketing Case Study #25: Dropbox

Dropbox has spent very little on advertising but has grown the company to $4 billion. This article shares some of Dropbox’s top techniques, specifically through word of mouth.

A decade ago, the internet was very different. To start off, it was much slower. The average download speed was only 5 Mbps.

Today, you’ll often find speeds 20x faster just about anywhere, even on mobile phones.

Due to these limitations, sharing and storing large files on the cloud was challenging and often expensive.

Cloud storage was mostly directed to businesses, and the consumer-level solutions available were clunky and unfriendly to the average user.

That is until Dropbox entered the market.

Tried and true old-school tactics: Even though Dropbox is a huge SAAS, it’s interesting to know that its initial growth did not rely on advertising of any form.

They went to the old school method of using word of mouth from their customers to reach the growth they were after.

The most valuable resource back then was storage space. So they gave out storage space to their existing customers so that they could motivate them to share their experiences with Dropbox.

This approach worked wonders, and Dropbox’s revenue quickly exceeded the $100 million mark.

Make it easy for your users: Dropbox wasn’t the first or only consumer-level cloud storage option in the market. But it was by far the easiest. Most of their competition, even those that were in the market before them, had cumbersome interfaces and poor customer support which made it difficult for users to sign up for their services.

Most of them had ads on their signup pages, so yes, it was ugly.

Dropbox, on the other hand, had a clean signup page that made it easy for users to sign up. Nothing unnecessary, and no ads were found on the signup page.

Incentivize sharing on social media: Back in 2011, social media reach was very effective in driving traffic. So to take advantage of this, Dropbox incentivized social media shares with free space. This worked out to be the perfect complement to their referral strategy. It decreased the friction in sharing and made it highly attractive for their existing users to become brand ambassadors.

Growth Marketing Case Study #26: Dollar Shave Club

The marketing behind razors, up until the launch of DSC, was pretty consistent. Every “new” razor offered the exact same thing, a better way to shave.

And it worked to some extent because razors are an everyday product for a lot of people.

They just ended up buying them the same way they had always done.

Dollar Shave Club didn’t innovate the product they sold. Their product is, albeit high quality, just about the same as everything else in the market.

So why did they become so popular? Because they innovated the experience.

Make your marketing fun and memorable: Dollar Shave Club’s initial marketing was nothing short of genius. It was fun, and it was memorable. It was a welcome departure from the idealized and mostly non-relatable approach that the traditional brands had embraced decades ago.

This more honest, down-to-earth, and witty approach gave them something that the other brands didn’t have. It gave them a relatable personality.

And the consistency of their personality across every aspect of their brand made them feel reassuringly consistent and was enough to help them differentiate themselves from the rest of their competitors.

Create an experience: Since innovation on the product side of things wasn’t much of an option, they decided to innovate on their customer’s experience.

The first hint of this is in their name. Dollar shave club is exactly what they are. They’re a club, something you can be a part of.

And this feeling of inclusion and community, paired with the direct-to-consumer model, made the experience of getting your razors from Dollar Shave Club highly attractive.

Get customers for life: One of the biggest drivers of growth behind DCS is that they have an incredibly long ratio of lifelong customers. Simply put, their business model makes it easy for their customers to want to keep on buying from them.

It’s a simple and straightforward subscription model that most users can get on board with.

This is what ultimately helped them reach a $615 million dollar valuation and ultimately be bought out by Unilever for $1 billion in 2015.

Growth Marketing Case Study #27: Casper

Casper is one of the best examples of how changing and improving the customer experience can revolutionize a segment.

Before Casper, if you were in the market for a new bed, you had to go to a physical location and well put up with being sold to.

That’s one of the reasons why so many people put up with an uncomfortable mattress.

The physical pain of a bad mattress wasn’t as bad as the pain of having to deal with the pain of going through all the hoops of buying a new mattress.

Casper changed this and led the way to a new trend of direct-to-consumer mattresses that revolutionized the entire sleep industry.

Understand your customer’s true pain: The traditional dealer-distributor model that has been in place for years made it so that buying a mattress was a less than pleasant experience for most customers.

It’s a model where salespeople were incentivized to sell but, unfortunately, got the reputation of using sleazy sales tactics.

Casper understood that this was the real reason why people wouldn’t buy a new mattress. They just didn’t want to go through that process, even though their old mattress was uncomfortable and even caused them health problems.

Casper gave its customers a much more viable alternative and had a high-quality product that their customers would be willing to try out.

Address all your customer’s concerns: One of the main challenges was to change the customer’s perception that they had to try-before-they-buy a mattress.

They tackled this head-on by offering an incredibly bold satisfaction guarantee and by providing plenty of educational content on their products so that customers could feel confident in their buying decision.

Then they followed up their product with SEO content centered around sleep and how it impacted health so that they could further establish themselves as sleep experts and gain their customer’s trust.

Leverage customer reviews: Casper did a great job at leveraging its customer reviews. They made it one of the central aspects of their retargeting and email marketing campaigns. Customer reviews are powerful tools since they provide a seemingly unbiased perspective of your product.

Growth Marketing Case Study #28: Groupon

Everyone loves a great deal. It’s a simple concept, and Groupon leveraged it to go from zero to having a $12.7 billion IPO.

Equally impressive as their valuation is the rate at which they were growing on a yearly basis. To reach this huge amount of sustainable growth, they relied on a few tried and true growth tactics.

These tactics are so effective that you’ll see that several other businesses in this article followed them to great success.

This means that you don’t necessarily need to reinvent the wheel but rather spend your energy on making it turn as fast as possible.

Make sharing easy: Groupon is, at its core, a social platform. And as such, it makes it very easy to be social. Groupon has always made it easy for its users to share the deals that they are interested in.

It incentivizes it because if not enough deals are taken, the deal won’t be available. So it adds an element of scarcity and perceived exclusivity.

So when FOMO kicks in, Groupon users become highly motivated to share on their social channels and increase the likelihood of their deals coming to fruition.

This, in turn, has the benefit of making sure the Groupon brand is consistently shared.

Email is still very powerful: For some reason, there’s always someone stating that email is dead. That inboxes are too cluttered and that no one pays attention to them anymore. This couldn’t be further from the truth, and Groupon knows this. This is why they have made email a key part of their marketing.

It’s important to understand that if someone voluntarily signs up for your emails, then they are giving permission to reach out to them.

Groupon makes the most out of this by sending daily emails with highly valuable content.

Copywriting makes a big difference: The quality of how you communicate with your customers makes a big difference in how effectively you can retain their attention. Groupon learned this early on and has characterized itself by sending interesting and fun-to-read emails.

It’s important to remember that nobody likes boring and bland content. Your customers will read what you have to say, but only if it’s well written and grabs their attention.

Growth Marketing Case Study #29: Porch.com

The home improvement market is enormous. It’s $500 billion and continues to grow at a steady rate.

So it was only a matter of time until a startup would try to revolutionize a market that had historically lacked innovation.

Enter the Seattle-based Porch.com. In 2013 porch set out to become the “Uber” of home improvement projects by helping connect construction professionals with homeowners that needed help in completing their tasks.

Amongst its achievements, Porch.com can mention:

• 300000 active professionals across the US.
• Nasdaq IPO in the year 2020.
• They reach approximately 66% of the homeowner market.

However, back in 2018, before they went public, their growth had started to plateau. Something had to be done. So they made a concentrated effort to improve their search engine visibility so that they could get a more sustainable and cost-efficient source of traffic. To achieve this goal, they went with the tried and true strategy of increasing their backlinks.

Link building can be transformative for your traffic: The reason why link building was chosen is that since they had started to rely on paid advertising for their lead acquisition, their cost per lead had started to increase.

This rise in cost per lead was eating into their profit margins, so from an ROI perspective, investing in cultivating high-quality backlinks was a good strategy to follow.

Porch’s marketing was able to obtain over 931 backlinks from unique domains throughout the year. This helped them make a significant boost in their organic traffic and helped decrease the total cost of their lead acquisition.

Here are some of the growth strategies they followed:

• They didn’t limit themselves to home renovation topics but rather created content across a broad range of related topics to expand the number of high-quality websites they could be relevant to.
• This broad range of content helped them land mention on television and local radio across several major cities.
• Some of the results generated by the campaign were 257 mentions from relevant publishers, 180 regional media mentions, and over 38000 social shares.

[…] If you want real-life examples of what other companies have done, take a look at these growth marketing case studies. […]

[…] can also find more examples and ideas in our growth marketing case studies […]

[…] You can find real-world examples in our list of growth marketing case studies. […]

[…] You can discover a variety of strategies and tactics in this guide to growth marketing case studies. […]

[…] You can discover more growth marketing case studies here. […]

[…] are more ideas, strategies and tactics in this article on growth marketing case studies, […]

Growth is a process, stop improvising .

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10 Best Growth Marketing Case Studies [2024]

Growth is the holy grail that fuels innovation, sparks transformation, and propels businesses forward.

However, what does it require to attain lasting growth in the ever-shifting terrain of contemporary growth marketing?

This blog comprehensively analyzes ten pivotal case studies in growth marketing. Each case study offers a detailed look at the strategies and outcomes of successful marketing campaigns, providing valuable lessons and best practices for professionals in the field.

Related: Who is Chief Growth Officer? Role & Responsibilities

Case Study 1: Nike and Awin’s “Never Done Growing” Growth Marketing Campaign

In partnership with Awin, Nike set out to enhance their growth marketing strategy with a special focus on women’s sports. Their objective was to infuse Nike’s “Never Done Growing” mantra into their affiliate strategy to boost brand awareness and sales revenue while advancing the women’s sports arena.

The campaign was executed across European markets, targeting the UEFA Women’s Euro football tournament. The strategy encompassed a comprehensive range of publishers and employed a multifaceted approach. This included the deployment of video content, social media engagement, editorial publications, strategically targeted incentives, and integrative events linking offline and online interactions. This comprehensive approach aimed to reach a broad audience with engaging and relevant content.

Key elements of the execution included:

• Diverse Range of Publishers : Engaging different publishers to reach varied audiences.
• Multimedia Approach : Utilizing video, social media, and editorial content for widespread reach.
• Targeted Incentives : Offering specific incentives to engage consumers.
• Offline-to-Online Events : Creating events that link physical experiences with online engagement.
• Focus on Women’s Sports : Emphasizing women’s sports, particularly during the UEFA Women’s Euro.

The campaign was highly successful, achieving significant milestones:

• Record Engagement and Sales : The Women’s Euro 2022 campaign marked a significant milestone in sports marketing. It achieved record-breaking engagement levels in the women’s sports category and effectively boosted the sales of women’s national jerseys, reflecting a successful marketing strategy alignment with audience interest.
• Revenue Growth : There was a 42% year-on-year revenue growth, demonstrating the campaign’s effectiveness in driving sales.
• Enhanced Brand Position : Nike solidified its women’s football market position.
• Diversification is Key : Utilizing a mix of publishers and mediums can reach a broader audience effectively.
• Focus on Niche Markets : Concentrating on niche areas like women’s sports can yield significant results.
• Creative and Innovative Approaches Work : Combining creativity and innovation in marketing strategies can lead to high engagement and sales.
• Partnerships Amplify Impact : Collaborations, like that of Nike and Awin, can enhance the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

Case Study 2: Rakuten Advertising and RevLifter’s Campaign for Sam’s Club Membership Growth

Sam’s Club, a renowned membership-only retail warehouse club, sought to enhance its growth through a collaborative marketing campaign with Rakuten Advertising and RevLifter.  The primary aim was to enhance Sam’s Club membership growth.

Their strategy involved a personalized coupon page and location-based targeting, focusing on local markets. This approach was designed to attract new and retain existing members by offering tailored experiences.

The campaign succeeded considerably, surpassing monthly and annual membership growth targets. Specifically, it exceeded monthly targets by 13.5% and annual goals by 17.8%.

• Personalization Drives Engagement : Tailoring marketing efforts to individual preferences can significantly impact membership growth.
• Geo-Targeting for Local Impact : Focusing on local markets with geo-targeted strategies can yield substantial results.
• Effective Use of Multiple Channels : Utilizing a mix of channels, including personalized digital content, can effectively boost membership acquisition and retention.

Case Study 3: Slack’s Growth Marketing Campaign

The aim was to introduce Slack as a novel solution in business communication, a category that didn’t exist before its launch. The goal was to raise awareness among businesses and nonprofits about this new, efficient working method.

Slack utilized word-of-mouth marketing, leveraged integrations with other popular business apps like Google Drive and Trello, and prioritized customer feedback for improvements. A standout feature was the channel organization, simplifying topic discussions and project management and encouraging users to share the app.

Slack’s approach led to widespread adoption, reaching 18 million daily users across 156,000 organizations globally by 2021, generating $902 million in revenue. The success culminated in its acquisition by Salesforce for about $28 billion in December 2020.

• Innovative Solution Introduction : Introducing a new category requires clear communication of its benefits.
• Leveraging Existing Ecosystems : Integrations can accelerate growth by tapping into established user bases.
• Customer-Centric Development : Listening and quickly adapting to user feedback is crucial for app refinement.

Case Study 4: Airbnb’s Referral Marketing Strategy

Airbnb aimed to accelerate its growth and solidify its position in the travel industry through a referral marketing strategy. This approach was designed to expand the user base by leveraging existing customer networks.

The referral program incentivized current users to invite friends to join Airbnb. Each successful referral earned travel credits for the referrer and the new user. This strategy capitalized on word-of-mouth marketing, encouraging satisfied customers to spread the word about Airbnb.

The referral program’s impact was substantial. It is reported that within 30 days of its launch, Airbnb saw a remarkable 300% increase in sign-ups and bookings. Moreover, this strategy contributed significantly to Airbnb’s global expansion, helping the company to establish a more substantial foothold in international markets.

• Leverage Existing Customer Base : Airbnb demonstrated the effectiveness of using satisfied customers to drive business growth. Satisfied customers can be the most convincing advocates for a brand.
• Incentivize Referrals : Offering relevant rewards, like travel credits for Airbnb, can motivate customers to refer others.
• Simplify the Referral Process : Airbnb made it easy for users to refer friends through email and social media, increasing the likelihood of referrals.
• Monitor and Optimize the Strategy : Continuously tracking the effectiveness of the referral program allowed Airbnb to make necessary adjustments and maximize its impact.

Case Study 5: LOJEL’s Affiliate Marketing Strategy with Perform[cb] and Rakuten Advertising

LOJEL, a brand offering premium travel essentials, aimed to explore affiliate marketing to expand its digital presence. They sought to establish effective partnerships and leverage affiliate marketing to enhance their brand reach.

Perform[cb] and Rakuten Advertising focused on identifying and forging partnerships with publishers that resonated with LOJEL’s brand ethos. This was achieved through Perform[cb]’s expertise in partner recruitment and Rakuten’s robust reporting tools. The strategy involved crafting tailored campaigns between LOJEL and selected publishers, expanding into various marketing channels. A regular performance monitoring and reporting cycle was established to ensure quick adaptation and optimization for maximum effectiveness.

• 96% increase in revenue QoQ
• 74% increase in sales QoQ
• 13% increase in average order value QoQ
• Strategic Partner Selection : Choosing partners that align with brand values is crucial in affiliate marketing.
• Customized Campaigns : Tailoring campaigns to fit both the brand and the partner publishers ensures more authentic and effective marketing.
• Continuous Monitoring and Adaptation : Regular performance reviews and adjustments are key to maintaining the success of affiliate marketing efforts.

Related: How to Become a Marketing Director?

Case Study 6: How Jose Cuervo’s Sparkling Margarita Conquered Summer Socializing

The primary goal was to launch Jose Cuervo’s world’s first ready-to-drink Sparkling Margarita, setting ambitious targets to sell 56,268 cases and capture market share by displacing two drinking occasions from competitors. The campaign aimed to position Sparkling Margarita as the quintessential drink for summer socializing, amidst the challenging backdrop of COVID-19 lockdowns.

Awaken, the agency behind the campaign, employed a strategic, research-driven approach, identifying a target demographic of younger, educated, and progressive individuals aged 25–34, predominantly female, who enjoy tequila and pre-mixed spirits. Utilizing digital-centric strategies, the campaign eschewed traditional alcohol marketing channels, opting instead for high-impact digital formats and unique placements in moments of social preparation, such as sponsoring Spotify playlists, taking over Pedestrian TV, and engaging users on dating apps like Tinder.

Creative collaborations with agency Mango ensured messaging resonated across selected channels, with a particular focus on in-home consumption occasions. The strategy was flexible, incorporating an outdoor presence that could be adapted based on the evolving COVID-19 situation, ensuring relevance and engagement in both lockdown and reopening phases.

• Sales of Sparkling Margarita exceeded the target by 33%.
• Generated a total of 47,394,489 campaign impressions.
• Achieved 155% of the target impressions with paid social activity.
• Surpassed media activity targets with 114% impressions and 134% clicks.
• Demonstrated cost-effectiveness on platforms like Spotify, Tinder, Snapchat, and Facebook.
• Reached 2.8 million people, with a frequency average of 10.1, even amid low pedestrian traffic due to COVID-19.
• Flexibility is Key: The ability to pivot strategy in response to changing circumstances, particularly during the uncertain times of COVID-19, was crucial for campaign success.
• Understanding Your Audience: Deeply understanding the target demographic allowed for tailored and effective engagement strategies.
• Innovative Media Strategy: Avoiding traditional, saturated channels and focusing on high-impact digital spaces can yield significant dividends, especially with a smaller budget.
• The Importance of Context: Aligning the product with the consumers’ lifestyle and moments of consumption enhances relevance and drives engagement.

Case Study 7: Storytel’s “Random – A Multiplatform Love Story

• Increase brand awareness and attract new subscribers to Storytel’s audiobook and ebook subscription service.
• Engage Gen Z audiences through a unique, multi-platform storytelling experience that reflects their digital habits.
• Showcase the breadth of content available on Storytel and its ability to create immersive experiences.
• Story: The campaign centered around a fictional love story between two young adults who meet on “Random,” a virtual chat room app, during the COVID-19 lockdown.
• Storytel app: The core narrative was delivered through nine short audio episodes within the Storytel app.
• Spotify: A curated playlist on Spotify mirrored the story’s moods and themes, further engaging audiences.
• YouTube: A nine-part video series offered visual glimpses into the characters’ lives, expanding the narrative and showcasing the audio format.
• Radio: Short audio snippets aired on partner radio stations, driving listeners to the Storytel app for the full experience.
• Music video: A music video featuring the original song from the series added another layer of entertainment and emotional connection.
• Collaboration: Storytel partnered with popular Polish influencers and musicians to promote the campaign across their social media channels, reaching a wider audience.
• The campaign achieved a 116% increase in new paying subscribers for Storytel.
• There was an 80-60% increase in new user registrations on the platform.
• The campaign generated over 11 million video views and 9 million organic views for the music video.
• “Random” was nominated for the Webby Award in the “Branded Content & Entertainment” category, highlighting its innovative storytelling approach.
• Storytel’s campaign successfully leveraged the power of multi-platform storytelling to engage Gen Z audiences.
• The use of familiar platforms like Spotify and YouTube allowed for a seamless and accessible experience.
• Collaboration with influencers and musicians extended reach and added a layer of cultural relevance.
• The campaign demonstrates the growing importance of creating immersive and engaging content to connect with younger demographics.

Case Study 8: Tia Revolutionizing Women’s Healthcare

Tia aimed to revolutionize women’s healthcare by addressing systemic gaps with a holistic, integrative approach. Through a subscription model, Tia sought to make healthcare accessible, comprehensive, and centered around women’s needs, offering services like unlimited messaging and same-day appointments with specialists.

Partnering with Superbolt, Tia launched a full-funnel marketing strategy focused on brand awareness and efficient member acquisition, utilizing a mix of digital platforms and optimizing web and SEO strategies. The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a pivot to virtual care, expanding services to include mental health support and therapy.

• Secured $24 million in funding in May 2020.
• Expanded with a new clinic in LA by year’s end.
• Membership increased to over 3,000, achieving approximately 9x growth in one quarter.
• Adapting marketing strategies in real-time is crucial, especially in response to global events like the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Virtual care and targeted mental health services can significantly expand a healthcare brand’s reach and relevance.
• Efficient use of digital marketing and SEO is key to increasing brand awareness and member acquisition.
• Collaboration between marketing teams and clients ensures alignment on objectives and maximizes campaign effectiveness.
• Agile response to market changes can fuel growth and attract significant investment, even in challenging times.

Case Study 9: ASICS Engaging Gen Z with the Colour Injection Campaign

ASICS aimed to reposition itself within the lifestyle and fashion markets, targeting Gen Z consumers by leveraging TikTok, a platform where they had not previously launched a paid campaign. The goal was to promote their Colour Injection collection effectively to both athletes and fashion-conscious individuals.

The campaign involved selecting four creators from over 700 of ASICS’ own FrontRunner ambassadors to co-create content that resonated with the #RunTok community. This approach led to the development of six unique creative concepts, focusing on genuine engagement within the running audience on TikTok.

• Achieved over 2,900 sales in a single day.
• Generated 2.9 million impressions and 16,000 clicks.
• Gained 50,000 new followers for ASICS on TikTok.
• Co-creation with community influencers can significantly enhance campaign authenticity and engagement.
• Precise targeting and creative collaboration are key to connecting with Gen Z consumers on their preferred platforms.
• Leveraging niche communities within larger platforms can lead to substantial growth in both reach and conversion rates.

Case Study 10: Old Navy’s Live Shopping Leap

To integrate live shopping into Old Navy’s e-commerce strategy, utilizing cutting-edge video technology to enhance customer engagement and conversions.

Collaborated with PMG, Who What Wear, and Firework to implement video commerce on Old Navy’s website, overcoming initial challenges related to site performance and customer experience concerns.

• 3 million views for the brand’s livestream event.
• 2% increase in add-to-cart visits.
• Nearly 6% rise in conversion rates.
• 1% growth in average order size
• Hosting video commerce on brand-specific digital channels can significantly improve conversion rates.
• Addressing and overcoming initial implementation challenges can lead to enhanced customer engagement and increased sales.

Related: Hobby Ideas for Marketing Leaders & Managers

The exploration of these ten growth marketing case studies reveals the diverse and dynamic nature of modern marketing strategies. From the innovative use of technology to the harnessing of human connections, these examples illustrate the transformative power of growth marketing in various industries. They serve as a guide, highlighting the importance of adaptability, customer engagement, and strategic thinking in the ever-evolving digital landscape.

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5 Growth Strategy Case Studies and Key Takeaways

June 9, 2019

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Growth Marketing Case Studies (2024)

Artem Dogtiev | April 11, 2024

Across all markets and geographies where mobile apps have become one of the economy staples, the question of a mobile app’s growth is an existential one. It’s either you manage to sustain the app’s growth month after month or you go sidelines of the app industry being beat by your competitors. Hence growth marketing is what app marketers doing their best to master and we believe providing case studies will be beneficial for you to analyze what you can do for your mobile app project to secure its growth.

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Join leading brands like Google, Reddit, and Uber in taking the next step towards success using Moburst, and spark enthusiasm for your product among users!

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Case Study #1 Airbnb

Today, when you think about traveling and planning a place to stay on your trip, Airbnb pops up in your mind every time as one of the options you consider. The company established itself as an easy-to-use, flexible, safe hospitality provider for tens of millions of people around the globe. Of course, it had its own ups and downs, particularly when COVID-19 hit in 2020, it was struck really badly but it managed to stay afloat and move forward. In this article, I’d like to begin with Airbnb because it’s one of the Silicon Valley’s companies where the top management not only trying to meet their financial bottom line but doing their best to do the right thing for the society, given their scale and impact globally.

Airbnb iOS app listing on the App Store

Source: the App Store

Growth Marketing campaign objective

The story of Airbnb began back in 2007 when Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia (co-founders of Airbnb) after looking for a place to rent in San Francisco, saw the potential in the idea of essentially renting an air mattress as a bed and breakfast for people to rent. So the objective of their growth marketing campaign was to find a way to scale up this brilliant but hardly scaleable idea.

At the very beginning of its path on the market, when none of raised by 2022 $6.4 billion in funding over 19 rounds was available, the founders – Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk had to be really innovative to raise the capital needed for the company to take off. The first $30k was raised essentially by making the platform a part of the US Presidential elections, the company sold cereals branded for Democratic and Republican nominees.

To find the first pool of users for the platform, Brian and his team turned to Craiglist – Airbnb’s users could post ads for their rentals on the popular classified ads platform, which wasn’t actually what Craiglist allowed to do. Back then, circa 2010, Craiglist already had a big pool of users who were placing ads offering their place to rent or looking forward to the one to rent.

The other growth pain to overcome was the poor-quality photos of properties people were offering to rent, to fix it Airbnb’s team began to photograph listed rents using an HQ camera, by now the company employs 2,000 freelance photographers.

Yet another obstacle on the company’s path to growth was people’s fear to let somebody live in their apartments and houses. The introduction of social integration into the platform allowed to mitigate this fear, when people could see previous tenets’ reviews.

And the final piece of Airbnb’s growth to mention – is the referral program that allows its users to share it with their friends and family.

Airbnb has grown to a hospitality platform with a revenue of $8.4 billion (as of 2022), 6.8k employees, 4 million hosts, and 800 million guest arrivals. A combination of a positive personal experience and an easy-to-use referral program led to millions of new users signing up for the platform.

Turning to another superstar in the world of mobile apps and digital platforms used by tens of millions of people around the globe. Let’s see how the world-famous file-sharing platform Dropbox became the absolute leader of the space and what was its growth story.

Case Study #2 Dropbox

When it comes to file sharing, Dropbox is the absolute leader with 17.4 million paying users and $573 million in revenue (Q2, 2022). At one point Apple was trying to buy the company but its team preferred to stay independent and now continues to be the file-sharing platform that connects people using various desktop and mobile operating systems for their computers and mobile devices.

Dropbox iOS app listing on the App Store

Source: App Store

To understand Dropbox’s objective at the beginning of its growth on the market, I need to describe briefly the Internet of 2008, the year the app was launched. An average download and upload speed was an order of magnitude less than today and all solutions for online file-syncing were strictly B2B oriented. Dropbox had to convince people that safe and quick online file-sharing is actually what is available to them and not just big corporations.

It’s interesting to note that to achieve that phenomenal growth that today people refer to when they need an example of hyper-growth, Dropbox spent zero on advertising. Dropbox’s team launched a referral program that allowed users to suggest the platform to other people and as a reward, they got more disk space to store and share more content.

Back in 2008 and for a number of years later, disk space was the most valuable asset to reward people with for helping the platform grow. The basic plan offered by Dropbox provided only 5 Gb of disk space, to get more users had to pay and so there was a really strong incentive for people to find somebody to share the service and get rewarded with more free disk space through the referral program.

Three years after its launch, in 2011 Dropbox could manage to generate $100 million in revenue.

Switching from the file-sharing service that people refer to as the easiest and fastest way to share files to a short-form video world champion of today – TikTok.

Case Study #3 TikTok

A short-form video hosting service owned by ByteDance, TikTok is one of the leading media platforms of today, on par with Instagram and YouTube. Since 2016 the platform grew to a giant with $13 billion in revenue in 2023 and 843 million monthly active users. The story of its phenomenal growth has multiple components I’m going to lay out further, focusing on major contributors.

TikTok iOS app listing on the App Store

Aside from many remarkable marketing feats that are attributed to TikTok, the one that stands out and was the major objective for the China-based owner of the app ByteDance – to succeed in the US market, outside  China, to this day TikTok is one of the very few that succeeded in pursuing this objective. Many Chinese companies have been trying to succeed in North America and Europe but mostly due to cultural differences failed to do so.

Influencers, and specifically top influencers with massive fellowship on TikTok’s major competitive social media platforms such as –  and still are – YouTube and Instagram were targeted as TikTok’s brand ambassadors to break into the US and European market. TikTok spent big budgets on tapping these two biggest media platforms’ potential to introduce the app to the masses in a short period of time. During the massive influencer marketing campaign, Youtube and Instagram influencers created lots of videos with the TikTok app and shared it on their YouTube and Instagram channels.

Creating viral challenges helped the app’s team to build a buzz around the app and drive user acquisition.

Yet another piece of TikTok’s spectacular success was the app itself. The company focused on short-form engaging videos, the content was analyzed via sophisticated algorithms to identify specific subjects that were triggering people’s interest to suggest more of it.

TikTok’s team managed to grow the app’s user base to the first billion users in two years, it’s accessible in 150 countries and in 75 languages, and it’s the 6th most-used social platform in the world. In 2021, it was the most downloaded app with 600 million downloads. The app is most popular with females (57%) and on average its users spend an hour in the app daily.

Switching the gears, from the most popular short-form video-sharing platform on the planet to the B2B app that is crucial for the operations of so many businesses around the globe – Slack app.

Case Study #4 Slack

Launched in August 2013, the instant messaging platform for business has effectively replaced email as a business environment to work on projects, communication between employees, and more.

Slack iOS app listing on the App Store

The uniqueness of Slack’s growth story is that, at the time when its founder Stewart Butterfield was launching the app, there wasn’t such a software category as business communication. Businesses struggled with running projects in email and just didn’t know that the solution was coming. The real objective for the app’s growth campaign was to raise awareness, to show businesses and non-profits that there was a better way.

The solution that Slack’s team came up with included word-of-mouth marketing, accelerating its growth via integrations, and listening very carefully to customer feedback.

The crown jewel of the Slack app was its channels that allowed to keep various topics discussed by business or academic teams separately, making it really simple to manage it and make real progress. The feature was so powerful that the app’s early adopters were really impressed, leveraging that the Slack team built in the feature for Slack users to share the app with their friends and colleagues easily. And this unleashed the power of word-of-mouth to make Slack really popular really fast.

One of the things that teams that develop new apps for collaboration have to address early, and Slack was a great example of that, was integration with other apps. In most cases, business teams use multiple apps to run projects, and integration between these apps is what makes their business run smoothly. Also, these integrations introduced the app to other popular app communities such as Google Drive, Trello, and Dropbox.

No V1 of a mobile app is perfect and the Slack app wasn’t an exception, plus along the way, the team made tweaks that weren’t always welcomed by its user base. Slack has been a very good listener to their users and quickly adjusts the app to address people’s problems with the app.

Today 18 million people use the app daily in 156k organizations around the globe, which generated for the company $902 million of revenue in 2021. For business communication, the app has become what Google became for search or YouTube for video sharing. In December 2020, Slack was acquired by Salesforce for about $28 billion.

Now, let’s move away from B2B apps and turn to the world of one of the most female-beloved apps – Etsy.

Case Study #5 Etsy

Launched 18 years ago, Etsy is a US e-commerce company with a focus on handmade or vintage items and crafts to buy. For many people, the platform has become either an extra income source or sometimes even the prime one.

Etsy iOS app listing on the App Store

Etsy occupies a unique niche being the biggest marketplace for handmade products on the planet. The success of the Etsy platform is deeply connected with the success of its sellers, from very early on the Etsy team was focused on helping their sellers to sell more and meet their bottom line.

To facilitate this objective, Etsy made it easy for sellers to share their Etsy shops on social media. In particular, Pinterest was really instrumental for the sellers, thanks to its focus on visuals and a great appeal for women.

Also, the Etsy team has always been on a mission to build the platform as a place for various individuals and communities to be creative and be rewarded for that.

As of Q2, 2021, Etsy had 4.7 million active sellers and 90.7 million people who check the app daily.

From the world of homemade crafts, people pour their love into and generate extra income, to the world of music with the app that has become a synonym of music streaming – Spotify.

Case Study #6 Spotify

Launched in 2006, Spotify was conceived as a legal music streaming platform at a time when music piracy was still in full swing and Apple’s iTunes, based on a tune-purchasing model, was still fairly new. Sweden-based Spotify’s founders Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon believed that was the answer to combat piracy.

Spotify iOS app listing on the App Store

Similar to Slack, Spotify’s team was a group of pioneers of the music streaming field that was later adopted by Apple and today in 2023 considered by everybody to be a default for the music business. Back in 2006, everything about the Spotify app’s growth was a challenge, starting with convincing music labels that streaming tunes was a good idea and that it will beneficial for all parties.

On top of the company’s efforts to convince music labels about the platform’s potential was utilizing the ad-supported model to offer the music streaming service for free and attract people who weren’t ok to pay for subscription services.

Also, Spotify’s team has always been focused on the app’s user experience, carefully listening to their complaints and suggestions, the team has been perfecting the app year-over-year.

Today 433 million people around the world listen to music on Spotify on a monthly basis and 188 million of those are active users. Unfortunately, the platform has never become profitable but as of 2022, it generated €11.72 billion in revenue.

And finally, we’re switching from the top music streaming app on the planet to one of the most successful mobile payment processors – Stripe.

Case Study #7 Stripe

In 2011 two brothers Patrick and John Collison from rural Ireland got the idea that they could make online payment processing a breeze and help lots of businesses to streamline their payments.

Stripe iOS app listing on the App Store

Hands down, back in 2011 the major objective for Stripe as a nascent company was to compete with such online payment processing companies as PayPal and Square that by the time of Stripe’s launch, was only two years on the market.

To take on such well-established players as PayPal and Square, Stripe’s team partnered with many prominent companies such as Xero, Dropbox, Mailchimp, Ramp, DocuSign, and Intercom to integrate their payment processing processor to these platforms and reach out to a wide audience of users on those platforms.

Developing API for developers to integrate Stripe into their apps was another solution to reach the company’s growth objective in the market dominated by PayPal and Square.

By 2022 Stripe became one of the highest-valued privately owned businesses in the US, valued at $95 billion, with about 7,000 employees worldwide, to name just a few the payment-processing platform is being used by Amazon, Google, Lyft, and Uber.

Final Thoughts

So here I presented only the seven case studies highlighting what marketing teams of these popular apps did right to allow these apps to grow quickly and sustainably. One common thread throughout all these cases is that partnerships with established companies, launching an easy-to-use referral program, and listening to your user base very carefully are the major components of these apps’ growth.

Good luck with your app’s growth marketing efforts!

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Hacking the Case Interview

A growth strategy or revenue growth case interview is a common type of case you’ll see in your first round and final round consulting interviews. This type of case interview may look something like the following:

Your client, Coca-Cola, is looking for new opportunities to grow after years of flat growth. They have hired you to determine the best way to grow.

In this article, we’ll cover a comprehensive framework that you can use to structure the different ways a company can grow. We’ll also show you the five steps you should take to solve any growth strategy or revenue growth case.

If you’re looking for a step-by-step shortcut to learn case interviews quickly, enroll in our case interview course . These insider strategies from a former Bain interviewer helped 30,000+ land consulting offers while saving hundreds of hours of prep time.

Growth Strategy Case Interview Framework

You can think about growth through two major categories, organic growth and inorganic growth.

The most common type of growth that companies pursue is organic growth, which is growth driven by expanding output or engaging in internal activities. In other words, the company is growing through its own capabilities and efforts.

Inorganic growth, on the other hand, is growth driven by acquisitions, joint ventures, or partnerships.

These two categories form the foundation of our growth strategy case framework.

Organic growth

Organic growth can be segmented into growth through existing revenue sources and growth through new revenue sources.

Growth through existing revenue sources

Growth through existing revenue sources is either driven by an increase in quantity of units sold or by an increase in average price per unit sold. 

To increase the quantity of units sold, a company can:

• Improve their product
• Decrease prices
• Sell through new distribution channels
• Target new customer segments
• Expand into new geographies
• Invest more in marketing and sales

To increase the average price per unit sold, the company can:

• Increase prices for their products
• Focus on selling higher priced products

Remember that changing prices will impact quantity of units sold, so it is important to look at the net effect price changes have on revenue.

Growth through new revenue sources

To drive growth through new revenue sources, a company can:

• Launch new products
• Launch new services

Inorganic growth

Inorganic growth can be segmented into three categories:  

Acquisitions

• Joint ventures
• Partnerships

The first way that a company can grow inorganically is by acquiring another company. This gives the acquiring company all of the revenue that the acquisition target generates. In addition, there may be revenue synergies that the acquiring company can realize.

Acquiring a company gives the acquiring company access to the acquisition target’s distribution channels, customers, and products. The acquiring company may be able to increase revenues by cross-selling products, up-selling products, or bundling products together.

The advantages of making an acquisition are that the company increases its revenues immediately. They also have full control over how they want to manage and operate the acquired company. 

The main disadvantages are that acquisitions are expensive and there could be difficulties fully integrating the acquired company.  

Joint venture

In a joint venture, two or more companies enter a business arrangement in which they pool together resources and share risk in accomplishing a particular task. Each company in the joint venture is responsible for profits, losses, and costs associated with the project.

Joint ventures are beneficial to companies because they can share resources, expertise, and can decrease costs due to scale. Additionally, joint ventures are much cheaper than acquisitions. 

A disadvantage of a joint venture is that it will take time to generate revenue. Also, the company does not have full control over the operations of its partners.

Partnership

A partnership is an association between two or more companies that provides some kind of benefit to each partner. This is slightly different from a joint venture because in a partnership, companies do not necessarily have to combine resources or efforts. They just need to be associated with each other.

One advantage of a partnership is that it is most often cheaper than a joint venture since resources don’t necessarily need to be contributed. Also, all partners get the benefit from the brand names and customer access of their partners.

Similar to joint ventures, one disadvantage of a partnership is that it takes time to generate revenue. Also, companies do not have full control over their partners’ operations.

5 Steps to Solving a Growth Strategy Case Interview

Follow these five steps and you’ll be able to solve any growth strategy or revenue growth case that you get.

1. Understand what the company is trying to grow

The first step to solve any growth strategy case is to identify what the company is trying to grow. Are they trying to grow revenues, profits, number of customers, or something else? 

Growing revenues versus growing profits can lead to very different strategies. Understanding what the company is trying to grow will help you determine what growth strategies will be most effective.

Interviewer: Your client, Coca-Cola, is looking for new opportunities to grow after years of flat growth. They have hired you to determine the best way to grow.

You: Is Coca-Cola looking to grow revenues, profits, or something else?

Interviewer: They are looking to grow revenues.

2. Quantify the specific target or goal

Next, you want to quantify the goal or target that the company is aiming for. For example, if the company wants to grow revenue, how much of a revenue increase are they hoping for? In what time period are they trying to accomplish this by?

You: How much is Coca-Cola looking to grow revenue by? And in what time period are they looking to achieve this level of growth?

Interviewer: They are looking to grow revenues by $1B over the next three years.

3. Look at potential organic growth opportunities

Once you have quantified the company’s target or goal, you can walk the interviewer through your growth strategy framework. You’ll most likely want to start by looking at organic growth opportunities first because this type of growth is more sustainable than inorganic growth.

You: To determine the best opportunities to achieve a $1B increase in revenues over the next three years, I’d like to use the following framework.

First, I’d like to consider potential organic growth opportunities. This includes growth through existing revenue sources and growth through new revenue sources.

Next, I’d like to look into potential inorganic growth opportunities. Is there a particular acquisition, joint venture, or partnership that would make sense for Coca-Cola to pursue? 

Interviewer: That sounds like a great plan. How should we proceed?

You: Let’s look at organic growth opportunities first. Since Coca-Cola is a mature company that has seen flat growth, I am guessing that there won’t be significant opportunities to increase revenues from existing revenue sources.

Interviewer: That seems like a reasonable assumption.

You: Okay, so let’s look at potential new revenue sources. Are there particular drink beverage markets that Coca-Cola has no presence in that they could expand into?

Interviewer: Let me share with you these exhibits on potential drink beverage markets Coca-Cola could enter…

4. Look at potential inorganic growth opportunities

After you have thoroughly investigated the organic growth opportunities, move onto looking into inorganic growth opportunities.

Consider whether an acquisition, joint venture, or partnership would be most appropriate given your company’s situation. Each of these methods of inorganic growth have their advantages and disadvantages.

You: After looking at organic growth opportunities, we determined that Coca-Cola could increase revenues by $600M by entering three niche drink beverage markets. However, we are still $400M in revenue short of our goal. I’d like to look into inorganic growth opportunities next. 

Interviewer: That makes sense. There are a few acquisition targets Coca-Cola is considering. Let me share with you some further information…

5. Prioritize and recommend the best opportunities for growth

Once you have investigated all of the potential opportunities for growth, it is time to prioritize and recommend the ones that are best for the company.

You’ll likely need to develop some kind of rubric to evaluate each growth opportunity. You can score each growth opportunity on the basis of:

• Ease of implementation

In step two, you quantified the specific target or goal that the company is trying to achieve. Make sure that your recommendation meets these goals.

You: To achieve its revenue growth targets, I recommend that Coca-Cola enter three emerging drink beverage markets and that they acquire Company X. There are two reasons that support this.

One, Coca-Cola can leverage its existing production and distribution capabilities to gain meaningful market share in these emerging drink beverage markets quickly. They could increase revenues by $600M over three years fairly easily.

Two, the acquisition of Company X would increase revenues by $500M, helping Coca-Cola achieve its revenue growth target. Additionally, there are many revenue synergies that Coca-Cola can take advantage of to grow revenues even more over the next few years.

For next steps, I’d like to look into Coca-Cola’s market entry strategy for entering these emerging markets. I’d also like to look into whether the acquisition price for Company X is fair and reasonable.

Interviewer: Great. Thank you for your recommendation.

Final Thoughts on Growth Strategy Cases

The most important part of solving growth strategy cases is to be structured and methodical in considering all of the different growth opportunities. If you lay out a comprehensive and organized framework, the rest of the case should be a simple process of elimination.

You should pay special attention to the context of the case and the company’s circumstances. The stage of the company, how much free cash it has on hand, and the level of urgency the company is facing will help you narrow down your options.

After practicing a few growth strategy cases, you’ll notice that these cases follow a predictable pattern and you’ll be able to solve any growth strategy case that comes your way.

In addition to growth strategy case interviews, we also have additional step-by-step guides to: profitability case interviews , market entry case interviews , M&A case interviews , pricing case interviews , operations case interviews , marketing case interviews , and private equity case interviews .

Recommended Growth Strategy Case Interview Resources

Here are the resources we recommend to learn the most robust, effective case interview strategies in the least time-consuming way:

• Comprehensive Case Interview Course (our #1 recommendation): The only resource you need. Whether you have no business background, rusty math skills, or are short on time, this step-by-step course will transform you into a top 1% caser that lands multiple consulting offers.
• Hacking the Case Interview Book   (available on Amazon): Perfect for beginners that are short on time. Transform yourself from a stressed-out case interview newbie to a confident intermediate in under a week. Some readers finish this book in a day and can already tackle tough cases.
• The Ultimate Case Interview Workbook (available on Amazon): Perfect for intermediates struggling with frameworks, case math, or generating business insights. No need to find a case partner – these drills, practice problems, and full-length cases can all be done by yourself.
• Case Interview Coaching : Personalized, one-on-one coaching with former consulting interviewers
• Behavioral & Fit Interview Course : Be prepared for 98% of behavioral and fit questions in just a few hours. We'll teach you exactly how to draft answers that will impress your interviewer
• Resume Review & Editing : Transform your resume into one that will get you multiple interviews

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Ready. Set. Scale. Shaping leaders for hypergrowth

Imagine two talented entrepreneurs developing a groundbreaking, solar-powered flying car to revolutionize sustainable mobility. Propelled mainly by entrepreneurial spirit, charisma, and business savvy, their start-up builds a following as quickly as their electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) prototype grabs headlines and dazzles consumers. Orders pour in from across the globe.

Now comes a critical inflection point. Can our hypothetical company scale from building a handful of bespoke eVTOL prototypes to establishing a global assembly line without losing the innovative edge at the heart of its appeal? The founders cannot afford to wait, but start-ups (companies whose funding stage is pre-Series B) face obvious challenges, including securing capital, maintaining differentiation in an emerging market, and contending with competition from more prominent players. A less obvious challenge—but no less essential to success—is bringing new leaders into the ranks (potentially including professional managers from larger companies) and undertaking rapid, effective leadership development to avoid the pitfalls that keep 80 percent of start-ups from succeeding. 1 Based on a sample of 3,164 companies with Series A funding in 2011 to 2013, assuming six to eight years to scale or exit, PitchBook data, April 2021.

Intentionally investing in leadership development can help hypergrowth companies 2 Based on McKinsey analysis, hypergrowth refers to a period of rapid expansion with a CAGR of 20 to 40 percent and three phases: build and launch (annualized return on revenue [ARR] of $0 to $10 million); grow (ARR between $10 million and $100 million); and scale (ARR greater than $100 million). counter the forces that may otherwise stand in their way, such as limited management skill sets, less experienced talent, and relative inexperience leading larger teams. Once start-ups manage to emerge from the early stages in which many fail, they need sustainable leadership capabilities to give the organization the flex and muscle required to adapt as growth continues.

To be sure, this leadership transition will present challenges, especially because leadership development should be what we call “at pace, on purpose”—that is, enabling rapid transformation while preserving the entrepreneurial spirit and the core tenets of the organization’s culture. That’s a tricky balance, whether the CEO founded the company or stepped in during the growth phase. But it’s worth the effort. By recognizing the importance of leadership in the hypergrowth process and investing intentionally in its development, startups can not only make the transition to “scale-ups” (companies whose funding stage is from Series B to IPO) but widen their competitive advantage.

Leadership development is not optional

There are some things in business which, if done suboptimally, will not necessarily impose significant liabilities. Leadership is not one of these things. Well-developed, high-quality leadership has a profound positive impact on an organization and its operating model. 3 Claudy Jules, Alok Kshirsagar, and Kate Lloyd George, “ Scaling up: How founder CEOs and teams can go beyond aspiration to ascent ,” McKinsey, November 9, 2022. McKinsey research shows that the EBITDA of organizations performing in the top quartile of leadership is almost double that of others, while organizations are 1.9 times more likely to have above-median financial performance when the leadership team has a shared, meaningful, and engaging vision.

Case study: Investing early in leadership development

When consumers expressed distrust in providers of housing finance in an Asian market, one multinational conglomerate decided to act. Leveraging its brand reputation, it set out to show the market how housing finance should be done: with honesty, integrity, and care.

The company had successfully built many businesses before, but this was its first financial institution. Its executive committee didn’t want to acquire an existing company that was part of the problem, so it chose to create a start-up and attract the best external real estate and financial talent. Looking at the market potential, the start-up CEO and his new team felt confident and planned for hypergrowth.

But the CEO was also concerned. He noticed that his new team had significant differences in leadership styles and cultural backgrounds that were already leading to friction. And looking at the steep curve in talent attraction plans, he feared inconsistent ways of working and a fuzzy culture would, over time, slow the company’s growth. He wanted to get it right before launch.

The CEO chose to take his 30-person leadership team beyond the technical plans for growth. In multiple workshops with external facilitators, he and the team jointly defined the identity of the company by including its higher purpose, desired culture, and aspirational leadership style. The process provided not only a point of reference for the existing team but also a clear set of criteria for hiring future talent. With significantly increased cohesion, clarity, and confidence, the company entered the market.

In the eyes of investors, leadership quality can affect a company’s market value by up to 30 percent. 4 Derek Matthews, “Why founders should focus more on people development to increase startup value,” Forbes, January 31, 2019. In addition, savvy general partners in private equity know that founders and their top teams have an outsize effect on the culture and operations of a start-up—and they have a keen interest in evaluating leadership potential as they make investment decisions. This is because effective founder-led companies have the potential to outperform peers. For instance, S&P 500 companies in which the founder is still the CEO generate 31 percent more patents than the rest. 5 Chris Zook, “Founder-led companies outperform the rest—here’s why,” Harvard Business Review, March 24, 2016.

Yet investors also know that leadership is not a static characteristic and that leaders must evolve for a company to grow. This is especially true for start-ups, in which the skill sets and approaches crucial to early success are often quite different from those required as an organization rapidly grows. Why? Because start-ups typically have less infrastructure and fewer processes, rapidly changing environments, a strong sense of culture, founder CEOs who are often also direct managers, and senior leaders who take on multiple roles. Start-ups can’t wait until the dust settles to acquire and develop the leadership capabilities they need. For hypergrowth companies and typical market disruptors, the dust does not settle, and founders may not want it to: the excitement of the start-up mentality is arguably part of the ride that appeals to visionary founders (see sidebar “Case study: Investing early in leadership development”).

Priorities in tension: Moving at pace while retaining purpose

Two vital elements are essential for building leadership capabilities in a growing, founder-led organization: pace and purpose. Understanding each in the context of leadership development and capability building is crucial, as is understanding their interplay.

Pace is important because rapid growth often leads to instability, along with sizable gaps in leaders’ experience, skills, and capabilities. When it comes to purpose, the challenge lies in transforming leadership mindsets and skills targeted to the scaling ambitions of the organization, together with its vision. This is difficult, because the target is inherently a moving one: leaders need the stability to function with the size and scope of their existing teams but must also embrace the dynamism and ongoing growth that will match the organization’s evolution. 6 Chris Zook, “Founder-led companies outperform the rest—here’s why,” Harvard Business Review, March 24, 2016. Moreover, CEOs must manage any tension created between leaders who have been there from the beginning and those who arrive during the growth stage—coming from different company cultures and with potentially different ideas for how to scale.

The trick is determining how to keep the ongoing transformation occurring at a tempo that maximizes performance and aligns disparate units of the fast-growing organization while staying true to the company’s purpose. This means leadership development has to be “at pace, on purpose” to enable rapid transformation while preserving the entrepreneurial spirit and the core tenets of the organization’s culture.

Four essential questions to guide leadership development

As the founders of our imaginary eVTOL start-up grapple with the challenges of growing their successful enterprise, they often ponder big questions that get to the heart of the company’s present and future:

• Who leads? Expand focus beyond the early few leaders to the top 40 to 50 critical roles and build capabilities early.
• How do we empower leaders? Give leaders authority as a way to expand their strengths and confidence.
• How do we keep the entrepreneurial spirit alive? Create a “founder mentality” throughout the organization and infuse the energy of the early days throughout all layers.
• What’s needed from us? Founders and top leaders need to shift priorities from building to managing relationships with shareholders and investors and preparing for a potential IPO or challenging times ahead.

1. Who leads?

As an organization expands beyond the start-up phase, it’s vital to understand what its leadership entails and demands. This requires a fundamental shift in how leadership is conceptualized: for example, from focusing on founders and a handful of senior leaders to a broader scope, shaping a few dozen critical top roles into one connected leadership team.

As leadership grows in structure and scope, the vital task becomes clarifying and articulating the company’s culture—the values and behaviors essential to the next generation of leaders. This is a delicate task involving some tension: founding teams must simultaneously embrace adaptation while doubling down on core values (see sidebar “Case study: The top-team leadership journey at an e-commerce platform”).

Case study: The top-team leadership journey at an e-commerce platform

A European e-commerce company experienced high growth during the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by a hard correction. To boost competitiveness and move faster, they sharpened their strategy, updated their operating model, and evolved their culture. The executive team realized that the key to improvement was changing the leadership behavior of the executive team and the surrounding top 50 roles. These leaders needed to work in different ways with each other and with the company. A project team was convened to create a nine-month leadership development journey comprising diagnostics, multiday workshops, and one-on-one coaching. The executive team aligned on priorities in the new strategy, drove decision making according to new roles, and mutually supported each other’s growth and development. The top-50 team shifted from a strict functional focus to a shared understanding of full company context, developed new behaviors around decision making and empowerment to speed up processes, and integrated new communication mechanisms to stay more connected.

Specific roles may change even as the founders and top team are charged with stewardship of the company and its culture. While leaders may wear multiple hats in the early stages, organizational growth will likely call for more structure and clearer roles. Moreover, the small circle of early leaders must acknowledge that the expanding enterprise will demand leadership and people skills that may be outside of their current knowledge and experience. As the company expands, it becomes crucial to enhance the matching of roles and profiles within the organization. This requires a thoughtful evaluation to “match the A players to the A jobs.” It may require hiring new people with different skills or investing in upskilling current employees to ensure the right individuals are in the right roles.

2. How do we empower leaders?

As start-ups grow exponentially, new hires are rapidly brought on, mostly for expertise. This often results in a wide range of leadership experience and leaders facing an ever-changing and expanding scope.

Case study: How tailoring leadership development built capabilities at a new joint venture

Leadership development should support both the business and cultural growth. A Philippines-based telecom company created a leadership development program that began with these objectives in mind, tying business skills and capabilities to the company’s vision and values. After carefully examining where things stood, it envisioned and built solutions, implemented them, and then—crucially—sought to ensure the changes and benefits could be maintained. Ultimately, leaders were able to draw clearer links between business objectives and their individual and collective roles. They were also equipped to cascade core skills and capabilities to the rest of the enterprise.

Maximizing leadership growth across a growing company hinges on creating highly customized programs that focus on the development of specific leadership skills and enabling leaders to understand their roles within the company’s big picture. Leaders at every level need to see how they contribute to the strategic evolution of the organization and have a shared understanding of the full company context in order to act as enterprise leaders beyond their functional scope. To do so, they need the opportunity and support to rise above daily firefighting. This is particularly relevant for younger talent with less experience leading others. A fast-growing consumer tech and media company implemented this by sharing internal data, such as subscription evolutions, with all employees to ensure organizational focus went in the right direction.

In addition, it’s common for leaders to feel overwhelmed or even burned out due to the execution pace. Companies can get ahead of this by building resilience through nuanced exposure to high-stress situations with the opportunity for reflection and debriefs (see sidebar “Case study: How tailoring leadership development built capabilities at a new joint venture”).

3. How do we keep the entrepreneurial spirit alive?

To ensure the continuity of a start-up’s original energy and spirit throughout its growth, it is vital to infuse the core “founder mentality” across all layers of the organization. This can be especially crucial at the stage when the company has grown such that core leaders feel more removed from employees. That’s when it can be particularly powerful to ensure all individuals—regardless of level or function—feel empowered to take ownership of the company’s culture, while also embracing the dynamism and agility that fuel growth (see sidebar “Case study: How a hypergrowth tech company cascaded its culture”).

Case study: How a hypergrowth tech company cascaded its culture

A rapidly growing Singapore-based tech company needed to ensure that its core business culture evolved from tacit to intentional as it entered its next phase of growth and prepared for an upcoming IPO.

The company invited about 100 functional and business leaders to participate in an 18-month program to build leadership skills that reinforced its values and future direction. This approach enabled participating leaders to test and pass along what they learned, generating an amplifying effect that allowed more than 2,000 colleagues to benefit from the program.

As companies expand, senior leaders can recognize their essential roles as coaches, mentors, and champions of the company empowering the next cohort of leaders. From a leadership development standpoint, it is valuable to work with individuals who excel at handling challenges and help shape them into purposeful leaders who grasp the bigger picture. In our experience, founders who adhere to proper delegation also tend to see empowered employees in response.

As organizations become more complex, there is merit to functions implementing their own objectives and key results (OKRs) to imbue structure and accountability in a more scaled environment. However, there is a risk of functions becoming overly focused on those OKRs, which is where leaders can benefit from fostering a “one organization” mindset and identifying early on what sets the company apart. 7 Blair Epstein, Caitlin Hewes, and Scott Keller, “ Capturing the value of ‘one firm,’ ” McKinsey Quarterly , May 9, 2023.

Embracing creative disruption is critical in maintaining the entrepreneurial spirit. But the founding company culture itself must change so that the company may scale. Gone are the days when growth was the only metric that mattered; investors want returns, which can incite companies to take actions that go against the founding culture, such as eliminating perks and cutting the workforce. A healthy culture can keep company spirit alive while also adapting to new realities.

4. What is needed from us?

All CEOs overseeing a growing organization—regardless of whether they founded it—are not leading the same organization in the scaling-growth stage as they were at the start-up stage. This may sound obvious, but, in practice, it is no small feat for founders and early-stage CEOs to acknowledge they need to grow and adapt to the same extent as their organizations—let alone take action to do so.

Complexity multiplies as companies grow. This necessitates, of course, increased delegation so leaders and top teams can prioritize what will become their most important role: the management of relationships with key stakeholders, including shareholders and investors (especially in turbulent times or in preparation for an IPO). If this results in a compounding number of granular daily tasks and decisions flowing to top leadership for vetting, it spells trouble: the speed of decisions will no longer match the organization’s speed.

Case study: Scaling a food pioneer in North America

A fast-growing food company found its broad ambitions challenged by the limits of its operating model. The CEO was the sole owner of enterprise finances, making accountability unclear across functions and geographies. Resources weren’t allocated for strategic effectiveness and efficiency, and SG&A expenses were spiraling as a result. Talent shortages in critical roles were hampering growth, and the enterprise lacked a performance culture. The company acted, starting with a comprehensive diagnostic followed by the design of a blueprint for how it should evolve. A talent “win room” accelerated hiring for key roles and helped build out the performance management ecosystem. Early results indicate that the company’s operating model is now more intentional, with appropriate profit and loss accountability and resource allocation as well as tighter control over SG&A spending. And the right people are in the right positions, with employees across the enterprise understanding their roles and being held accountable for their performance.

CEOs of growing firms must discern what is needed from them as the company evolves. How do they want to show up? Instead of trying to do everything—as they may have during the early days—leaders need to ascertain what they can and should do, delegating the rest to a top-quality team. But they also need to marry this distance from everyday tasks with keeping the needs of customers at the forefront of their minds. Managing this simultaneous awareness and delegation is at the core of how founders can drive business value as the company grows (see sidebar “Case study: Scaling a food pioneer in North America”).

Engage the questions to drive growth

While every company is unique, all must adapt as they grow. We recommend leaders take these four questions to heart, reflect on them, and discuss them in depth within the organization. It’s worth investing time and space to dig in because leaders who discern and articulate meaningful answers to all four may derive tremendous value for their organizations. This simple checklist provides founders with an effective way to assess their own leadership health, as well as that of their top teams:

• What have we done to focus closely on our top 15–20 critical roles that drive strategic value, understanding what they are and what they do?
• Beyond existing leadership skills, which additional skills are needed to scale to the next level?
• Which efforts help us define the values and behavioral characteristics of a shaper-leader?
• What crucial learning experiences have we developed with ongoing development pushes and apprenticeship opportunities?
• What highly customized programs, including comprehensive class options for different topics, do we have for learners?
• What pilot projects are creating resilience to prepare leaders in advance?
• How are we developing purposeful leaders with a strong understanding of why they are leaders?
• How have we developed a unified organization with a culture of “whatever it takes” for customer impact?
• How do we continually ask how we can make it better, disrupt, and create “business insurgency”?

4. What is needed from founders?

• How effectively am I delegating, spending less time with day-to-day operations and more time on big moves to drive enterprise strategy, such as M&A or product expansion?
• What can we let go of so we can stop trying to do everything and work on things we care about instead?
• How are we staying in touch with customers to ensure we maintain a deep “frontline obsession”?

Like our imaginary sustainable-mobility founders who hit on something revolutionary, today’s hyperscalers often have the potential to disrupt life as we know it with new ideas and the energy, discipline, teamwork, and persistence it takes to turn those ideas into reality. That opportunity is a compelling call to leadership. But achieving it requires a steadfast growth mindset, a tremendous dose of self-awareness, a commitment to ongoing adaptation, and a clear understanding that in the ranks of the world’s best organizations, leadership development is never finished.

Arne Gast is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Amsterdam office, where Fleur Tonies is an associate partner; Claudy Jules is a partner in the Washington, DC, office; and Alok Kshirsagar is a senior partner in the Mumbai office.

The authors wish to thank Cornelius Chang, Kate Lloyd George, Michael Park, Karolina Rosa, and Joachim Talloen for their contributions to this article.

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Case Study: Should You Compromise Your Founding Principles for Faster Growth?

• Sandeep Puri

A mission-driven company debates the best way to expand.

Marjorie Rodriguez heard her name called and moved toward the stage of the Hilton Bangkok ballroom. She had received awards for her advocacy work for the LGBTQ+ community in the Philippines before, but this was the first time she’d been recognized for Zevoron, the business she’d started three years earlier with the goal of providing jobs for transgender people in Manila and throughout her home country. Zevoron manufactured and distributed polvoron, a soft, crumbly shortbread made of flour, sugar, milk, and nuts, popular in the Philippines. The company name came from a combination of “ze”—a gender-neutral pronoun—and “polvoron.” What set the company apart, and the reason for the award, was that all its marketing and sales staffers were transgender. This unique positioning had struck a chord with customers and helped Marjorie to create a profitable business in a short period of time. 1

• SP Sandeep Puri is an associate professor at the Asian Institute of Management, in the Philippines.

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Case Interview Types: Master Common Ones Before Your Interview

• Last Updated January, 2024

Rebecca Smith-Allen

Former McKinsey Engagement Manager

On Case Study Preparation , we described what a case interview question is and how you should approach answering one. You can think about that page as your Consulting Case Interview 101 course.

But if we could tell you how to ace your consulting case interview in just one page, Bain, BCG, McKinsey, and other top consulting firms would give out a lot more offers than they do every year.

On this page, we discuss the most common types of case study interview questions . We’ll take your understanding of how to answer these to the next level by outlining the key issues to consider when structuring your answer.

Let’s get started!

Here are the types of cases you might come across during your case interview :

• Profitability Cases 1.1 Profit Optimization 1.2 Revenue Growth 1.3 Pricing Optimization 1.4 Market Entry 1.5 M&A 1.6 Cost Optimization 1.7 Startup / Early-Stage Venture
• Non-Profitability Cases 2.1   Lives Affected 2.2 Retention 2.3 Industry Landscape and Competitive Dynamics
• Market Sizing Questions (also called dinner conversation cases)
• Case Interview Math (also known as consulting math) 4.1 Consulting Math Example 4.2 Summary of Key Things to Remember on Consulting Math Questions

How To Make the Most of Case Interview Practice Time

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Nail the case & fit interview with strategies from former MBB Interviewers that have helped 89.6% of our clients pass the case interview.

Profitability Cases

On this page , we discussed case interview  frameworks   that can help you structure your answers to case study interview questions, we introduced the profitability equation. It’s 1 of 2 basic business frameworks you can use to answer any type of case question. 

This formula can help ensure you address all the key aspects of straightforward profitability cases like the following:

A sports apparel retailer has experienced declining sales in its stores over the past year and declining profits. How would you recommend they address their profitability problem?

A cell phone manufacturer is experiencing declining profitability despite strong sales. What should they do to improve their bottom line?

For more detail on the components in this formula and an example of how to use it to solve a case interview question, see our  Case Interview Frameworks  page . Below, we’ll discuss types of profitability problems that go beyond the basics.

Profit Optimization

Perhaps a company is profitable… just not profitable enough . 

Maybe its margins are lower than those of an industry rival. 

Maybe they’ve dipped below its own prior-year performance. 

Perhaps management sees an opportunity to launch a new product, leapfrogging the competition, but needs to generate more cash to invest in development. 

Any of these can be reasons to improve the performance of an already profitable company. 

Sample questions:

A nationwide fast-food chain failed to meet Wall Street expectations on its latest investor call and as a result, its stock price fell significantly. Management wants help identifying opportunities to improve the bottom line.

The CEO of a regional hospital chain is concerned that his company’s profitability is half that of the market leader. How can the company grow its net income?

Use the Profitability Equation

In structuring your analysis of a profit optimization case, you should touch on all 4 components of the profitability equation to understand what the company is doing well and where things have taken a turn for the worse. 

But the underlying problem in this type of case may be more subtle than in a basic profitability question. 

Instead of a big jump in costs or the loss of a large customer wiping out a significant chunk of revenue, the company may be experiencing a couple of small problems that add up to bad news for the bottom line. 

Benchmark Relative to Competition of Past Performance

For example, if our client is a TV manufacturer and we find out that our cost of producing a TV has increased overtime while our prices have remained the same, we can see that rising costs is the reason for our profits declining. 

To turn around the situation, we could look into what the competition is doing to reduce costs. For example, if a competitor is sourcing the same materials as us but from a cheaper supplier, we want to see if we can lower our cost by sourcing from the same supplier.

Benchmark One Business Segment to Another

Another way consultants benchmark performance on revenue and cost levers is by comparing the performance in one business segment or type of end-customer to another . 

Continuing with our TV manufacturing example, we might find that the client has seen costs rise on components in its high-end models but remain constant for its low-end models. 

We can look into what is being done differently in the low-end product group: low-cost sourcing, process improvement, etc. to find opportunities to improve the cost position in the high-end segment.

Use Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

The company may also need more disciplined business processes and a system for measuring key performance indicators . 

Our TV manufacturer might institute a system for measuring cost per unit on a weekly or monthly basis in order to ensure they have an early warning system to monitor if costs are getting out of line.

To go with these KPIs, a regular process for reviewing the costs and taking necessary action could be instituted. Disciplined processes and performance indicators will help to fine-tune operations over time, taking them from good to best-in-class.

Key concepts to consider when addressing a profit optimization case:

The profitability equation including all its components,

• Benchmarks of cost and/or revenue relative to best-in-class competition and prior year performance.  
• Benchmark the company’s performance segmented by product or type of customer .
• Opportunities for business process improvement and key performance indicators that will allow management to monitor profitability more closely. 

Revenue Growth

Revenue growth case questions focus on companies that, while already profitable, still want to grow. 

They can do this by increasing market share, by selling their existing products to new markets, by selling new products to their existing customers, or by pursuing a combination of these opportunities. 

They can also capture more revenue by increasing prices.

A national chain of fitness centers wants to leverage its brand equity by selling additional products and services to its client base. What incremental products and services can profitably grow revenue?

The president of a printer and ink manufacturer thinks there is an opportunity to provide after-sale service to its customer base. What might be the impact on revenue from entering this market?

Capture Additional Market Share

As its name suggests, this type of case study focuses on the first half of the profitability equation — revenue = price x quantity of units sold. in examining units sold, you should consider the company’s ability to capture additional market share for existing products in the markets it already serves. , what is the company’s current share of the market that of its largest competitor what would it take to capture additional share product improvements a shift in marketing and promotion.

If a chain of fitness centers was our client, for example, we’d look at whether the primary competition was 1 or 2 large chains or a number of small, single-location gyms and tailor our strategy to increase market share accordingly. 

If the competition was single-location gyms, we could promote flexibility for members to use our facilities in multiple locations to bring in new customers. We could also leverage the client’s greater size to outspend the small gyms on advertising.

Branch into New Products or Markets

Also, consider the new products and/or markets the company could branch into . What products do competitors sell that the company doesn’t? Does the company have capabilities that would help them  succeed in other markets?

Our fitness center client could consider selling new products like fitness apparel or vitamins. They could expand into new markets, such as towns and cities adjacent to ones currently served.

Offer Services to Existing Customers

In addition, consider  services that can be sold to existing customers . Post-sales support for equipment, for example. Or consumables used with their products, like ink for a printer manufacturer. Our fitness center client could look into providing personal fitness coaching services to members.

Review Pricing

Lastly, consider the company’s  flexibility to raise prices . Where do their prices stand relative to competitive products or services? Do their products or services have higher quality or value-added capabilities that would command a higher price?

For more examples of revenue growth case interviews, see our  Revenue Growth Case article. 

Pricing Optimization

A company must have a solid product or service offering to be able to take a price increase without seeing a significant loss of sales to competitors. 

If their products or services are strong, then optimizing price can be an important lever to grow revenue.

A manufacturer of kitchen knives sells a range of products, from low-end to professional, to customers at different price points. They’ve developed a new line of knives in collaboration with a celebrity chef and would like help setting the prices for these products.

The airline industry has experienced significant changes in its pricing model over the past few years, with some airlines charging separately for checked baggage, meals, and beverages. A global carrier has asked us to help optimize the pricing of the additional services it provides to customers who fly with them.

Elasticity of Demand

When prices rise, demand for a product goes down and when prices fall, demand rises. You’ll remember this from Economics 101, or perhaps just from common sense. Pricing optimization is all about how much . 

If you can raise prices with demand going down just a little, you can improve a company’s revenues by raising price. If a change in price has a big impact on demand, then raising price could be a big mistake.

The term for this is Price Elasticity of Demand . If demand for a product or service changes a lot in response to a change in price, it’s said to have price elasticity. Products with many substitutes or ones that consumers can easily do without are the most sensitive to price changes. 

For example, if McDonald’s raised the price of the Big Mac, more customers might go to Burger King, Taco Bell, or just eat lunch at home. McDonald’s hamburger sales would fall dramatically.

Substitutes

For some products, demand is relatively insensitive to changes in price. This can be the case for luxury goods, for products that have few substitutes , or for when there are large switching costs. When the cost of home heating oil rises, some customers consider switching to natural gas to heat their homes. But if doing so will require buying a new furnace to run on gas or paying for pipes from their house to the gas distribution network, they won’t make the change unless the change in price is dramatic and/or expected to persist for a number of years. 

3 Methods for Setting Prices

Competitive-based pricing — Setting prices based on the prices of other similar products in the market. This is the simplest method for setting prices. Companies who use competitive-based pricing are price takers.

Cost-based pricing —Setting prices as a function of the cost to provide a good or service plus a profit margin. Cost alone can’t be used to set pricing because if a company’s costs are out of line with its competitors, it may price itself out of the market.

Value-based pricing — Setting prices based on the value provided to customers. Luxury goods are priced well above the cost of their production because customers of these products value association with the prestigious image the product conveys. Products that provide significant value to customers in terms of saving time or providing features not found in other products can be priced higher because they are worth more to customers.

Value-based pricing the best pricing method but it can only be used for products and services that are sufficiently differentiated in the eyes of the customer that they will not change their buying behavior in response to higher prices.

Market Entry

Significant start-up costs will be incurred to develop and manufacture a new product, to launch the marketing campaign, or to build the sales force needed to find customers. 

To ensure that spending money on start-up costs are worthwhile, due diligence needs to be done to estimate the size of the market being considered and the cost of successfully entering it.

A teen fashion retailer has seen its sales boom in the North American market for the past 5 years. They’re considering expansion into international markets. They’d like help identifying which markets provide the best opportunities for their line of clothing.

A not-for-profit organization has been successful at hiring the long-term unemployed to manufacturer furniture made from pallets and other recycled items. They’ve not only designed and created beautiful pieces of indoor and outdoor furniture, but also helped to improve the lives of individuals in one city. They’d like to expand to other products and potentially to other cities and have asked for our help in assessing their options.

There are  4 parts to any market entry case : market size, market attractiveness, costs of entry and capabilities required. Let’s look at each.

Market size

Market sizing is sometimes used as a case interview question on its own. See below for more details . It’s also usually the first part of a market entry case. It addresses how large a market is in terms of annual revenue, number of units sold, or both. The underlying issue is whether there is enough opportunity in a market to make it worth the up-front cost.

To determine whether the amount of sales revenue or unit volume is “enough,” estimate the size of the market based on the information provided by your interviewer or by using factors you can reasonably estimate about the market. You can then consider profit margins and what portion of the market the company must capture to break even.

Market attractiveness

The market a company is thinking about entering may be huge, but it can still be unattractive. Key questions include: What is the profit margin for companies already in the market?  What does the competition in the market look like? Large firms with huge marketing budgets or small companies? 

Costs of entry

Will new technology, equipment, sales staff, or something else be required to succeed in the new market? If so, what will it cost? The greater the investment required to enter a market, the more difficult it will be to recoup the initial investment.

Capabilities

Does the firm being discussed have what it takes to succeed in the new market? In some markets, the key to success is marketing expertise and distribution. In others, it’s low costs and disciplined business processes. Identify the key attributes of success in the market and whether the company possesses those attributes.

To learn how you can structure and break down a case such as these, visit the  Case Interview Frameworks  page can help you think through important factors in this type of consulting case interview question.

Above, we looked at how to analyze a market entry case. 

If a market is attractive but the client does not have all the capabilities required to succeed in it, it may decide to buy the right capabilities through a merger or acquisition (M&A). 

They could also consider M&A opportunities if they need to enter the market fast rather than build capabilities over time.

The number 3 competitor in the cellular phone services market is at a disadvantage relative to its larger competitors. Providing cellular phone service has high fixed costs—for the equipment that transmits calls, the retail stores that sell phones and provide in-person customer support, and the marketing spend that is key to customer attraction and retention. The CEO is considering acquiring a smaller competitor in order to gain market share. He would like our help thinking through this decision.

The president of a national drug-store chain is considering acquiring a large, national health insurance provider. The merger would combine one company’s network of pharmacies and pharmacy management business with the health insurance operations of the other, vertically integrating the companies. He would like our help analyzing the potential benefits to customers and shareholders.

When you get this type of case, ask your interviewer why the company is considering the merger or acquisition. They may provide key information on the size and attractiveness of the market the target company is in. Assuming the target company is in a large, attractive market and has the critical capabilities required to succeed in that market, then you should consider whether it is better to build the new business internally or undertake a merger or acquisition. 

If two companies are considering a merger, they still have to persuade their shareholders that the 2 companies would be more valuable working together than on their own. The value the companies can create by working together is called  synergy .

Synergies from a merger or acquisition can be on the cost side, the revenue side, or both. Cost synergies include leveraging fixed costs across more business or cutting costs duplicated in both firms’ operations. Revenue side synergies include selling a broader range of products through the existing sales force or distribution channel. 

The synergies created by the merger or acquisition must be greater than the premium that must be paid to secure the deal in order for the transaction to make sense.

Integration

Mergers and acquisitions are large and complicated transactions. They require  integrating  the talent, systems, policies, and processes of the 2 organizations. Synergies that look good on PowerPoint slides do not always accrue in real life. In addition, key employees may quit during the disruption and uncertainty the M&A activity causes. Even if substantial synergies are identified, a company should consider whether it can successfully undertake the integration.

Regulatory Approval

Lastly, mergers of large companies in regulated markets (financial services, telecommunications) and concentrated markets (ones with only a few large competitors) can require government approval . The possibility of the government blocking the merger or acquisition should be considered in this type of case.

Cost Optimization

A top-3 home improvement retailer has seen price increases from several of its vendors, squeezing its bottom line. The company wants to know how it can cut costs to restore its margins to their previous levels.

The head of an automobile manufacturer has seen its production costs rise over the last several years. She wants your help in turning around this trend.

The most important thing to understand when addressing this type of case is what is going on with fixed costs and variable costs . The costs can be broken down and compared to competitors’ costs or costs in prior years to identify opportunities for improvement.

As a reminder, here are the definitions of fixed and variable costs:

Fixed Costs

Costs that you incur just because you are in business regardless of how many units you sell. Examples: factory rent, equipment depreciation, compensation for salaried employees, and property taxes. A way to think about fixed costs is that a cost that does not change over the short-term, even if a business experiences increases or decreases in its sales volume.

Variable Costs

Costs that only incur when you begin to produce units (if you sell nothing you have no variable costs). Examples: sales commissions, credit card transaction costs, and sales taxes. A way to think about variable costs is that a cost that does change over the short-term. More sales volume will mean more variable costs.

Startup / Early-Stage Venture

Startup and early-stage venture cases have some similarities to market entry cases. 

Ensuring that the market the company is going after is big enough and has high enough margins to be attractive is important, as is understanding their competition. 

Startups are small, nimble companies with only a handful of key employees and limited access to cash. These factors need to be taken into account.

A student from Iceland studying in the U.S. has determined there’s a big opportunity to bring Icelandic-style yogurt to this market. How would you recommend he proceed?

A software company has developed video technology that can be used to quickly and easily create short videos that can be sent to a colleague in place of typing a long email. This disruptive technology will take advantage of the cameras built into cell phones and laptops as well as consumers’ preference for watching a video rather than reading text. The company has a small number of beta customers and is looking for advice on how to ramp up their product to attract a wider audience.

When answering this type of case, focus on the key things that help these small, fast-growth ventures move with agility as they search for the product and business model that will attract customers and investors. 

The Right People

They need the right people —ones with product savvy, marketing savvy and investor savvy to make it. 

A Minimum Viable Product

They need a minimum viable product . This is an initial version of their product offering that will attract paying customers, allowing them earn money and to collect feedback that can be used to improve the product. It will also serve as a proof-of-concept to investors. 

A Business Plan

Start-up and early stage venture also need an initial business plan addressing how they will bring their product to market.

Non-Profitability Cases

Some might focus on charitable organization. Others might focus on businesses issues that don’t relate directly to profits, such as employee retention or understanding the competitive dynamics in an industry. 

An overview of how to approach non-profitability cases is found on this page .

This section focuses on key concepts to address in a few common types of non-profitability cases.

Lives Affected

Government agencies and charitable organizations don’t aim to maximize profits. Nonetheless, they do important work that affects many lives. 

They might hire a consulting company to help them improve their effectiveness, or a consulting firm might take on an important project for a charitable organization on a pro-bono basis. 

The state agency that administers the free summer lunch program for children of families under a certain income threshold wants to increase the reach of its program. How would you advise they approach this? 

Malaria is a devastating disease, affecting hundreds of millions of individuals each year. It’s transferred to humans by mosquitoes, with most of the cases occurring in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Though drugs to treat the disease exist, many in the affected regions don’t have access to or can’t afford these drugs. The disease is a strain on the economies of several nations, perpetuating the cycle of poverty. What can be done to alleviate this disease and its adverse economic effects?

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

A detailed example of how to approach a lives affected case is provided  here .  As discussed in that case, the key to answering this type of question is to find the key performance indicator (KPI) the organization is trying to improve. In the case of the first sample question above, this is the number of free lunches served to needy children. 

Benchmarking

Once you’ve established the KPI, the case can be answered in the same way you’d answer any case question on business improvement. You can benchmark the organization’s performance by looking at trends in the KPI over time or comparing the growth of the organization’s KPI to that of other organizations serving the same target population to assess whether the agency is doing a good job meeting their mandate or falling behind. If they are falling behind, drill down into the factors that might be causing them to do so.

Cases focused on employee retention are not directly about profits, though the loss of key skills when employees depart and the cost of training new hires require hurts the profitability of organizations with high turnover. 

A fast-food chain is experiencing an increase in the already-high rate of employee turnover typical in its industry. It’s also experiencing trouble attracting qualified new employees. What would you suggest?

The school system in a middle-class suburban town is experiencing higher-than-normal rates of teacher attrition. With a tight budget, they are unable to simply raise salaries to hold onto experienced teachers. What options does the school system have for increasing teacher retention?

Conducting retention interviews —interviews with departing employees to find out why they’re leaving the organization—is a standard practice in most organizations. Because of this, there should be data available on what employees like about their jobs, don’t like about their jobs, why they looked for new opportunities and what new job they’re taking. Ask your interviewer for this information, as well as survey data on the job satisfaction of all employees. It can be used to develop a multi-pronged approach to improving employee retention.

• Look for opportunities to enhance aspects of the job that appeal to employees and change the negative aspects of working for the organization. For instance: What about the job is appealing? 
• Do employees see the work of the organization positively impacting the broader community? 
• Do employees like their colleagues, recognition they receive from management, the financial package provided? 

Industry Landscape and Competitive Dynamics

Cases focused on the landscape of an industry and its competitive dynamics are about the big-picture strategic issues that must be taken into account to compete effectively in that industry.

The traditional newspaper industry is facing heavy pressure from free online news organizations that don’t face the cost of printing a traditional newspaper and are able to leverage Internet ads as a source of revenue. The publisher of an award-winning regional paper would like your help in assessing and responding to this new threat.

The food and beverage industry faces disruption to their traditional brands as organic and small-batch products gain favor with consumers. How should companies in this industry respond to this new of competitive threat?

When analyzing this kind of case, first look for what is changing in the industry —consumer preferences, brand loyalty, barriers to entering the market, regulation, the industry’s cost structure, etc. Ensure you know what the source of change is before you begin to look for a strategy to help the client succeed in the new marketplace. 

For tips on structuring a case like these, visit the  Business Frameworks page . SWOT analysis and other frameworks include some factors to consider in this type of consulting case interview question.

Market Sizing Questions (Also Called Dinner Conversation Cases)

Market sizing cases are focused on establishing the size of a market in terms of annual revenue or the number of units sold rather than determining how to compete successfully in the market. 

Consulting firms often ask market sizing questions early in the consulting interview process or in interviews of undergraduate students who may not have a deep business background. 

They can also be one component of complicated, multi-step cases in later-round interviews. Market sizing questions focus on making logical estimates, showing creativity, and doing basic math.  

What is the size of the market for organic toothpaste in the United States?

How many golf balls would fit inside the Empire State building?

What Are Consulting Interviewers Looking for on Market Sizing Cases?

With case interview questions of this type, you’re not expected to know the answer, but instead to show a logical way of deducing it. Committing a few key facts to memory would serve you well. For example, knowing the population of the United States (or the country you live in) would give you a good place to start as you think through the size of the market for various retail goods. Gross domestic product can help with sizing industrial markets.

Key Statistics to Know for Market Sizing Case Questions:

The Population of the United States 2019 – 329 million according to the US Census Bureau .

World population in 2015 – 7.4 billion according to the United Nations DESA / Populations Division .

2018 Gross Domestic Product of the United States – $20.5 trillion according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the U.S. Department of Commerce .

Statistics like these give you a good foundation to start your market size analysis. For instance, you could begin estimating the size of the U.S. market for organic toothpaste with the US population. From there, make logical assumptions:

• How many times a day does the average American brushes their teeth?
• How many toothpaste applications are in the average tube of toothpaste?
• How much does the average tube of toothpaste cost?

These assumptions will allow you to calculate the size of the overall toothpaste market in terms of annual revenue. To get to the annual revenue of organic toothpaste you’ll also need to estimate:

• What portion of toothpaste consumers prefers organic toothpaste?

You can (and should) bring paper and a pen into consulting interviews. Use these to keep track of your assumptions as you work through them and to do the basic math required to come to a conclusion.

 Our Market Sizing Questions article has a list of the 7 steps to answering this type of question.

Key Things to Remember When Answering a Market Sizing Question:

• Ask clarifying questions. Does the interviewer want the market size in terms of dollars or units? For the United States, North America, the world?
• Use round numbers for simplicity. For instance, using $20 trillion for U.S. GDP rather than $20.5 would be fine.
• Creativity in your approach to approximating the market is important, but so is good sense. Don’t be so creative that your answer lacks credibility.
• Practice case math so you can do it quickly and correctly even under the stress of an interview.
• Give your answer a sniff-test at the end. Does it make sense? This will both show that you are careful in your analysis and give you the chance to fix an arithmetic mistake if you find you’re way off. 

Case Interview Math (also known as consulting math)

Management consulting interviewers screen candidates to ensure that they can do basic math. 

Don’t worry if you didn’t ace multivariate calculus, the math is usually basic arithmetic—addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and fractions/percentages. You may also be asked to extract data from charts and convert from one unit of measure to another.

As mentioned in the discussion of market-sizing case questions above, you can and should bring a paper and pen into the interview. It’s fine to write out your calculations.

Consulting Math Example

In each step, we’ll provide a sense of how we are making the estimate so that the interviewer knows we’re not just grabbing a number out of the air. We want our answer to be as grounded in fact as possible. 

The population of the United States: 329 million. We’ll round to 330 million for simplicity.

The number of times the average American brushes their teeth – 2 times per day. Some people brush at lunchtime too, but that’s probably offset by people who only brush once a day.

330 million people brushing 2x’s per day gives us 660 million toothpaste applications/day.

To get to an annual number of toothpaste applications, we need to multiply by 365. That’s 241 billion toothpaste applications. We’ll round to 240 billion for simplicity.

A tube of toothpaste usually lasts me about 2 months. That means we need to divide by 120 toothpaste applications per tube to come up with the number of tubes sold annually (2 months x 30 days/month x 2 applications/day). 240 billion toothpaste applications / 120 applications per tube = 2 billion tubes of toothpaste sold in the U.S. every year.

The cost of toothpaste ranges from $1 for inexpensive brands to $4 for expensive brands, but the average cost is probably about $2. This means the total revenue for toothpaste sold in the U.S. is 2 billion tubes x $2 or $4 billion.

The percent of the toothpaste market that’s organic is a little tricky to estimate. In the grocery store I shop in, there’s 1 aisle of organic goods in a store that has 20 aisles – that means organic products make up 5% of shelf space (and presumably also of sales). 

I think that people would be less likely to buy organic toothpaste than organic food, because you eat organic food, but you spit organic toothpaste out into the sink. Organic products always cost more and organic toothpaste doesn’t seem quite as important to your health. 

Conclusion: Based on that, I’ll say that 1% of the market for toothpaste is organic, so if $4 billion in toothpaste is sold in the U.S. every year, $40 million of it is organic toothpaste.

Is our answer right? 

Probably not exactly. There are different sizes of toothpaste tubes, a complication that we did not consider in this analysis. There might be some people who don’t brush their teeth every day. That would mean that we overestimated consumption. 

But our estimate of the market size for organic toothpaste is reasonable and grounded in logical assumptions. We could sniff-test our answer by comparing it to a market size we know, or to GDP, one of the facts we suggested having in your back pocket for market sizing case questions. 

U.S. GDP was about $20 trillion in 2018. Our estimations suggest that the overall toothpaste market is $4 billion. That means toothpaste is 1/5,000 of the U.S. economy, and the market for organic toothpaste is 1% of that. 

That sounds plausible. If your answer showed that the market for organic toothpaste was larger than U.S. GDP, it would be a clear indication that you made a mistake somewhere along the way.

For the 4 types of math problems you’ll be asked to compute as part of case studies, read Case Interview Math.

Above, we’ve provided you with 11 different types of case interview questions you might be asked during your consulting interviews. We’ve also told you that you need to get great at doing case math. 

Overwhelming? It can be.

But it doesn’t have to be.

The best way to prepare for your consulting case interviews is NOT to spend hundreds of hours reading every case study question and answer you can get your hands on. Instead, see our page on Case Interview Practice  to find out how to make the most of your interview prep time. In addition, check out this video where Davis Nguyen, Founder of My Consulting Offer, talks about how mastering the case interview is made easier when you focus on the most common types of cases. 

Here in an online workshop he conducted for  Columbia University, NYU, and Cornell students, you can see why this approach is so effective:

After studying the information on this page, you have an in-depth understanding of the types of cases you could be asked to analyze in consulting interviews. From Davis’s video, you know why this is so important to focus on the main types of cases. You’re well prepared to find a case study practice partner and begin practicing.

As you prepare for case interviews, you should use this page in conjunction with  Case Interview Examples , where you’ll find links to sample case study questions and their answers. Remember that while it is important to discuss all the appropriate aspects of a business case, it’s important to structure your analysis and your answer. Refer back to our page on  Case Interview Frameworks   to ensure that you’re not just practicing more cases, but doing them better.

If you still have questions, leave them in the comments below. We’ll ask our My Consulting Offer coaches and get back to you with answers.

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Growth Equity: The Child Prodigy of Private Equity and Venture Capital, or an Artifact of Easy Money?

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Over the past few decades, growth equity (GE) has gone from an afterthought to a major asset class for huge investment firms.

Some argue that GE offers the best of both worlds: the opportunity to fund innovation and growth – as in venture capital – plus the ability to limit downside risk and invest in proven companies – as in private equity .

Others would counter that growth equity’s rapid ascent was mostly due to the easy money that persisted between 2008 and 2021.

With interest rates at ~0%, funds inevitably flowed into anything with “growth” in the name – regardless of its real growth potential:

Table Of Contents:

What is growth equity.

• The Top Growth Equity Firms

Why Did Growth Equity Get So Popular?

Growth equity vs. venture capital vs. private equity, on the job: growth equity careers.

• Growth Equity Recruiting

Growth Equity Interviews and Case Studies

Compensation and exits.

• Pros and Cons and Final Thoughts

Growth Equity Definition: In traditional growth equity, firms invest minority stakes in companies with proven business models that need the capital to expand; some firms also use “growth buyout” strategies, which are like traditional leveraged buyouts but with higher growth potential.

Most of the confusion around “growth equity” comes from the fact that it includes two different strategies, and many top firms use both.

Here are the main differences:

• Strategy #1: “Late-Stage Venture Capital” – This is what most people think of as “growth equity.” This style is about purchasing minority stakes in cash-flow-negative-but-high-growth companies that want to scale and eventually go public or sell (think: Uber or Airbnb before their IPOs). Valuations are high, the returns depend on future growth, and deals are for primary capital , i.e., new cash the business needs. There’s usually a long list of previous VC investors as well.
• Strategy #2: “Growth Buyouts” – This strategy is more like traditional leveraged buyouts because the PE firm acquires a much higher percentage of the company (or even majority control). Most companies are already profitable, the potential returns are lower, and there’s usually a large secondary component (i.e., the Founders sell some shares to take money off the table, but “the company” doesn’t get any of that cash). Debt financing is much more common, and the GE firm is often the first institutional investor.

Over time, many traditional growth equity firms have shifted to the “growth buyout” category as their assets under management have grown.

Most of this guide deals with the “late-stage VC” strategy, as dozens of other articles cover private equity strategies such as leveraged buyouts and traditional private equity .

The Top Growth Equity Firms in Each Category

If you asked the average person to name the “top” growth equity firms, you’d probably get a list like the following:

1) Primarily Late-Stage VC Deals – Examples include a16z Growth, Battery, Bessemer, Sequoia Growth, and Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV).

Most of these firms started out doing early-stage VC deals and still invest across all company stages.

2) Primarily Growth Buyout Deals – Firms like Accel-KKR, Great Hill, Mainsail, PSG, Spectrum, and TA Associates go here.

Many of these firms use debt to fund deals, and they complete bolt-on acquisitions for portfolio companies.

3) Mix of Late-Stage VC and Growth Buyout Deals – General Atlantic, Insight, JMI, Stripes, and Summit are good examples.

4) Private Equity Mega-Funds with Growth Teams – TPG Growth is the most famous example, but you could also add the growth teams at Advent, Bain, Blackstone, Permira, Providence, and Warburg Pincus (note that these are not all “ mega-funds ” according to our definitions).

You could keep going and add plenty of names.

For example, Susquehanna Growth Equity is another great firm, but it doesn’t use the traditional LP/GP structure, so I’m not sure where it fits in.

Similarly, SoftBank has played a big role in growth equity (for better or worse…) but it’s the investing arm of a corporation, not a standalone PE/VC firm.

Many other well-known VCs have also raised growth equity funds, including Benchmark, Kleiner Perkins (KPCB), and NEA.

The main factors were:

• The Rise of Tech and Software – Since so many growth equity deals involve technology, the sector’s rise over the past 10 – 20 years also drove a lot of growth equity investing.
• Companies Began Staying Private for Longer – A long time ago, startups went public within a few years of raising VC funds (see Google , Cisco, etc.). In the 2010s, startups began to postpone their IPOs, but they still needed funding.
• Tech Industry Maturation – As the technology industry matured, companies generated more predictable cash flow, but they still needed capital to scale.
• Loose Monetary and Fiscal Policy – The quantitative easing (QE) and zero-interest-rate policies (ZIRP) that existed in most countries between 2008 and 2021 spurred a lot of “growth investing,” as established/sleepy firms like Fidelity suddenly became interested in riskier investments. Many hedge funds also joined the party.

From a career perspective , growth equity appealed to many bankers and consultants who didn’t want to be “pigeonholed” in venture capital (limited exit opportunities) or suffer through “banking hours” once again in private equity.

Growth equity offered a compromise: Modeling and deal work, networking, and shorter hours than most PE roles.

This section will focus on Strategy #1 (Late-Stage VC Investing) because Strategy #2 is nearly the same as what most middle-market private equity firms do, but with higher-growth companies.

Official descriptions usually cite the following points to explain how growth equity firms differ from VC and PE firms:

• They acquire minority stakes in companies (like VC and unlike PE).
• They invest in revenue-generating companies with proven business models (like PE and unlike early-stage VC).
• They aim for cash-on-cash multiples between 3x and 5x rather than the 5x, 10x, or 100x that VCs target and the 2x – 3x that many PE firms target. The targeted IRR might be in the 30 – 40% range.
• They earn returns primarily from growth via acquisitions and organic sources.
• They do not use debt since they only make minority-stake investments. However, they often invest using preferred stock with liquidation preferences attached to limit their downside risk (similar to VCs).
• The average deal size is bigger than early-stage VC but smaller than many PE deals; the $25 – $500 million range might be the norm for U.S.-based firms.
• The main risk factor in deals is executing the growth plan, not default risk due to debt (PE) or product/market risk (VC).

Growth equity firms could invest in any industry but tend to be skewed toward technology and TMT , with some exposure to consumer/retail , healthcare , and financial services .

The specific growth strategies used by portfolio companies could include almost anything, but a few common ones are:

• Paying for employees, buildings, and equipment to enter new geographies or markets.
• Developing new products or services.
• Scaling a company’s sales & marketing by hiring more sales reps.
• Completing bolt-on acquisitions that will boost the company’s revenue and cash flow.

Unsurprisingly, growth equity careers are a mix of private equity careers and venture capital careers .

Let’s run down the average tasks an Analyst or Associate completes each day at a “Late-Stage VC” firm to demonstrate this:

• Sourcing: As in VC careers, there’s a lot of emphasis on “sourcing” or finding new companies to invest in (read: cold calling and emailing). Deals and business strategies are less complicated than in PE, so finding great companies is a competitive advantage.
• Financial Modeling: Like private equity, 3-statement models are common, as are valuations and DCF models , but LBO models are less common since not all deals use debt. Like venture capital, cap tables , liquidation preferences, and primary vs. secondary purchases come up frequently (plus, SaaS metrics , SaaS accounting , and so on).
• Portfolio Companies: You probably won’t interact with management teams quite as much because your firm won’t own controlling stakes in all its portfolio companies. You may still help with operational issues, but it’s harder to “force” companies to change in a specific way.
• Due Diligence: For similar reasons – minority stakes rather than control deals – you won’t devote quite as much time and effort to due diligence in deals.

If you do the math, you’ll see that something doesn’t add up because the modeling, deals, and due diligence are less intense than in PE, but you also work longer hours than in VC (50 – 60 hours per week up to 70 – 80 when a deal is closing).

What accounts for the difference?

At some firms, the answer is “a lot more sourcing.”

But at other firms, you might spend more time on market/industry research or get more involved with portfolio companies.

The overall career path, tiles, and promotion times are like the private equity career path , but compensation is usually lower (see below).

Growth Equity Recruiting: Who Gets In, and How Do They Do It?

The recruiting differences vs. other fields of finance are as follows:

1) Candidate Pool: Growth equity is open to a wider pool of candidates than PE roles, but not as many as VC roles. Many people still get in from investment banking and management consulting , but some also get in from VC and finance-related jobs at startups. Also, you can get in more easily from a middle-market or boutique bank .

That said, you are still highly unlikely to win growth equity offers from something like engineering at a tech company or brand advertising.

Even product management is questionable – it can work for VC roles, but probably not for GE since you need more technical skills.

Finally, you can get into GE directly out of undergrad, but it’s less common than in IB/PE, and it’s not necessarily recommended because many of these roles are “sourcing heavy.”

2) Process: At most firms, the process is closer to off-cycle private equity recruiting , where you must proactively network to find roles. The biggest GE firms and the PE mega-funds still use on-cycle recruiting, but

3) Technical Skills: People often claim that growth equity interviews are “less technical,” but this is not universally true. You could easily get asked to complete an LBO modeling test, a 3-statement model, or a DCF, and standard IB interview questions and VC interview questions could come up.

Obviously, you’ll need these technical skills if you join a team that does “growth buyout” deals.

But even if you apply to a late-stage VC team, they might still give you a modeling test to weed out candidates .

The main question categories in interviews are:

• Fit/Background – Expect to walk through your resume , explain “why growth equity,” why this firm, your strengths and weaknesses , and so on.
• Technical Questions – Everything is fair game (see above).
• Deal/Client Experience – You should review your 2-3 best deals and say whether you would have done each one, with “growth” as the key criterion.
• Firm/Portfolio Knowledge – You need to know the firm’s investment thesis, strategies/verticals, and have a rough idea of its portfolio companies. To save time, focus on 1-2 specific companies and do enough research to discuss them in-depth.
• Industry/Market Discussions – Rather than trying to “learn” the entire SaaS, AI, or hardware market, focus on one specific vertical (e.g., the top 2-3 companies, your #1 investment pick, the growth drivers, the risk factors, and the overall outlook).
• Mock “Sourcing” Calls – The firm could also ask you to role-play a call with a prospective portfolio company by introducing yourself, asking key questions, and requesting a follow-up conversation.
• Case Studies – Most GE case studies are either 3-statement modeling variants or open-ended market-research case studies, but anything is fair game ( paper LBO models , simplified or full LBO models, etc.).

An open-ended case study might give you a few pages of information on a company and ask you to draft an investment recommendation.

To do this, you will have to research the company’s market size, competitors, growth strategies, and strengths/weaknesses.

We don’t have a direct example here, but the VC case study on PitchBookGPT gives you a flavor of what to expect in a qualitative case.

For a modeling example, see our growth equity case study based on Procyon SA .

These two points depend on whether you worked on growth buyouts or late-stage VC investments .

In growth buyout teams/firms, compensation at larger firms is generally a 15 – 20% discount to private equity compensation.

So, if an “average” PE Associate earns $300K – $350K in total compensation, the average range might be closer to $250K – $300K at a growth buyout firm.

However, note that the mega-funds might still pay about the same because they may align compensation across groups.

If you work for a smaller, late-stage VC fund, expect compensation closer to normal VC levels (maybe the $200K – $250K range, though it’s hard to find specific data here).

Fund sizes are smaller, portfolio company exits takes more time, and performance is less predictable, all of which account for the lower pay.

On the other hand, some firms pay “sourcing bonuses” if you contact enough companies, and they may offer co-investments in certain details, so there are ways to increase your pay as well.

As far as  exit opportunities , you could move into standard private equity if you worked on growth buyouts, but this is much more challenging coming from a late-stage VC role.

Other opportunities include other GE firms, VC roles, startups/portfolio companies, or an MBA.

You wouldn’t be the best candidate for most hedge fund roles (traditional PE is better), but corporate development might be possible, especially if you had IB experience before entering growth equity.

Pros and Cons of Growth Equity and Final Thoughts

Summing up everything above, here’s how you can think about growth equity:

• It’s more accessible than traditional private equity roles.
• You potentially make a high impact from day one since much of the job involves finding new companies to invest in.
• You work with more “exciting” companies since your goal is to find and accelerate growth.
• Compensation is solid , especially in growth buyout teams, though it is usually a discount to traditional PE (albeit with better hours).
• There’s a good mix of exit opportunities spanning VC, PE, and operational roles.
• Some firms require extensive sourcing , including pressure to meet specific call targets, which many people do not like.
• You have limited control over portfolio companies due to the minority stakes, which means you can’t necessarily “change” specific things.
• It doesn’t necessarily offer a net advantage over joining a traditional VC or PE firm because each benefit has a drawback (e.g., shorter hours but lower compensation).
• Growth equity is highly cyclical – more so than early-stage VC or traditional PE – since late-stage funding tends to dry up quickly in down markets.

The last two points here are the most serious ones.

Even in a terrible market, plenty of early-stage VC deals still happen because people are always starting companies.

And while PE firms are less active in poor markets, they can still work on their portfolio companies, make add-on acquisitions, and pursue asset sales or divestitures .

By contrast, many growth equity firms get stuck in “no man’s land” because they write large checks but may not have majority control to implement big changes.

Growth buyout teams get around this issue if they do > 50% deals, but in many cases, you’d be better off going to a traditional PE firm first to gain a broader skill set.

If you like it, you can always shift to GE or VC afterward, as it’s much easier than the reverse move.

That said, growth equity can still be great for the right person – if you understand that combining two industries means you get the best and the worst of each one.

About the Author

Brian DeChesare is the Founder of Mergers & Inquisitions and Breaking Into Wall Street . In his spare time, he enjoys lifting weights, running, traveling, obsessively watching TV shows, and defeating Sauron.

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• BOOK REVIEW
• 24 May 2024

The global economy’s 200-year growth spurt — and what comes next

• Rutger Hoekstra 0

Rutger Hoekstra is an ecological economist at the Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University, the Netherlands. He is the author of Replacing GDP by 2030 and coordinator of WISE Horizons, a beyond-growth project funded by the European Union.

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Increasing demand for digital technologies drives work at the world’s largest transformer supplier, in Rugao, China. Credit: Costfoto/Future Publishing/Getty

Growth: A Reckoning Daniel Susskind Allen Lane/Belknap (2024)

For decades, the global economy has been growing by 2–5% per year. This growth is eating up ever more resources, destroying biodiversity and ushering in dangerous levels of global warming. Endless growth of this kind isn’t sustainable. What can be done? Should growth be maintained, but differently, to protect Earth while resolving inequalities and other social problems? Or should growth be curbed and the global economy stabilized or even shrunk? These are crucial questions with complex answers, about which people disagree fervently.

In Growth , economist Daniel Susskind delves into the roots of these problems and offers suggestions. His passages putting economic growth into historical context are engaging. Yet, in my view, his wider analyses and solutions are too limited to make this book a good starting point for the broad moral discussion that he advocates.

Growth, past and future

Susskind begins by pointing out how economic growth is a recent phenomenon. For around 300,000 years, while societies were mainly agricultural or capable only of subsistence, overall long-term prosperity remained more or less stagnant. Then, around the start of the nineteenth century, something unprecedented happened: the global economy began a 200-year growth spurt.

How rich is too rich?

Why? Economists have no definitive answer, Susskind rightly concludes. He provides an insightful overview of hypotheses, based on factors including capital investment, technological progress, skilled and educated workers, and cultural and institutional conditions. He highlights the importance of innovations such as medical science and breakthroughs in transportation and manufacturing. And he stresses that a society that is more receptive to science is also culturally better equipped to apply these innovations in the economy.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, economic growth was propelled to the top of the list of policy objectives in the West. It was seen as key to rebuilding shattered European economies, and crucial to prevailing in the cold war and in creating full employment — an important objective since the Great Depression in the 1930s. The idea spread and went on to become a global policy objective.

Gross domestic product (GDP) came to be seen as a measure of the success of a society — and an end in itself, rather than a means to an end, as most economists see it. But this posed a “growth dilemma”, Susskind notes. On the one hand, “GDP is correlated with almost every measure of human flourishing”. On the other, the fossil fuels and digital technologies underlying this economic growth are “climate-destroying, inequality-creating, work-threatening, politics-undermining, and community-disrupting”.

Illegal gold mining has led to deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon. Credit: Cris Bouroncle/AFP/Getty

Public discussions about how to resolve this dilemma are contentious, even factional. To oversimplify, there are two main camps. One, championing ‘green growth’, extols the benefits of economic expansion and stresses that it can be achieved sustainably. The second, focused on ‘degrowth’, argues that economic growth is not the solution to social and ecological problems, but the cause. It holds that these issues can be solved only by a democratically agreed reduction in growth in rich countries.

Susskind refers to his own position as “weak degrowth”, but spends much time analysing how to “unleash” growth by reforming intellectual-property laws, increasing research and development and getting more people to innovate. He makes a powerful argument that society must dictate the direction of innovation — towards green technologies, for example — to reduce the negative effects of growth.

Yet, Susskind admits, hard choices will inevitably be required. Choosing whether to pursue more or less economic growth will always affect “other goals”, such as a healthy climate, fair distribution of wealth, cohesive communities, well-paid and high-quality work and a functioning democracy. To navigate these decisions, he suggests, society will need to ask itself some deep “moral questions” through participatory democratic processes such as citizens’ assemblies.

A reckoning

What should a reader make of this? Just like Susskind, I am no expert on all the scientific domains needed to make such choices. No one is. I’m sympathetic to his remark that it is impossible to write on such a broad topic and provide a full and uncontroversial overview of all the literature. But, in many sections, such as the one on GDP, I was unconvinced.

I have worked in national accounts and on alternatives to GDP . Yet I was confused by Susskind’s argument that economists should follow “GDP minimalism”, such that GDP should be limited to measuring the “taxable income” of society. He lists many well-known problems with GDP and proposals to expand its scope, but does not say what exactly he would change.

Why the world cannot afford the rich

For example, Susskind argues that economists should not expand the scope of GDP by factoring in damages such as air pollution. He bases this on “moral modesty” — in his view, value-laden choices have no place in a quantitative metric. Yet he does not provide a comprehensive way of judging what is in and what is out. Many sectors that contribute to current GDP figures — such as tobacco, alcohol, fossil fuels, gambling, social media and businesses that take advantage of monopolies or price gouging — might also be considered immoral. Should those be removed?

Susskind also wants to restrict what GDP measures to emphasize “technical diligence”. It is unclear what that would mean. The quantity and quality of health services are hard to measure, for example; should these be excluded from economic growth figures? And the availability of data varies for each country. Should internationally comparable GDP figures be abandoned and each country have its own definitions? Or should economists revert to the lowest common denominator, considering only factors for which every country has adequate statistics? The book is inconclusive.

Susskind suggests using a dashboard of indicators rather than adjusting GDP. Yet, strangely, he doesn’t reference influential dashboards such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals or its predecessors, the Millennium Development Goals, which have existed for decades.

Deeper problems lurk in the theoretical foundation of Growth . Four things stand out.

First, the standard view in the literature is that economic growth is a means to an end, not the end itself. Yet, without justification, Susskind frames his arguments around achieving economic growth as a goal, alongside others.

To build a better world, stop chasing economic growth

Second, he argues that, because ideas are infinite, there is no limit to possible economic growth. This is quite a claim, and he does not provide convincing support. He simply points to the possible combinations of atoms and the number of recipes one could make from a given set of ingredients. Because the number of variations is huge, he thinks it likely that society will continue to generate enough useful ideas to go on expanding the economy.

Yet, some of the books Susskind refers to undermine that. For example, Robert Gordon’s Rise and Fall of American Growth (2016) argues that the generation of useful ideas (those that contribute to quality of life) has slowed since the 1970s, and that this is why we should not expect economic growth to continue.

In medicine, too, the rate of discovery has reduced in the past few decades. Life expectancy dropped in many countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. And many high-income nations are experiencing increased mortality owing to ‘bad’ ideas including drugs, alcohol, fast food and guns.

Degrowth can work — here’s how science can help

Third, Susskind argues that growth-driving ideas are unrestricted by the limits of a finite planet. Yet, scientists have shown that six out of nine ‘planetary boundaries’ — Earth systems, such as climate change, that will have a huge effect on current and future generations — are being crossed ( K. Richardson et al. Sci. Adv . 9 , eadh2458; 2023 ). Given this, Susskind’s unfounded optimism seems too large a risk.

Fourth, Susskind’s ‘moral discussion’ framing seems restrictive. He is willing to sacrifice a bit of growth for the sake of “other” societal goals. But, frankly, I was expecting a deeper discussion of what constitutes ‘a good life’ and how those lives could be led in a way that respects the limits of the planet and takes into account other people and future generations. I would also expect a discussion of the sacrifices that people might need to make, in terms of diet, transportation, consumption or taxation. I see no justification that ‘expanding economic activity by between 0 and x %’ is a valid boundary to such a fundamental moral debate.

In sum, Growth offers a readable and useful introduction to the green-growth perspective. There are insightful parts and I support a plea for a moral reckoning. But the book omits crucial environmental insights and lacks the robustness needed for such a foundational debate around the goals of society.

Nature 629 , 992-994 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01520-8

Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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