The top reason why startups fail is tackling problems that are interesting to solve rather than those that serve a market need.
Source: CBInsights
We launched the Market Acceleration Program (MXP) in 2015 to give our venture capital fund portfolio companies an unfair advantage.
It was professionally developed by a team of experts, and continually improved from our work with hundreds of startups and thousands of founders.
We operate the MXP as a hands-on program covering every step of the process to find product-market fit and coaching our founders as they perform the actual work of acquiring customers and growing revenue.
We’ve adapted the MXP into an online playbook for use by anyone who supports entrepreneurs.
Every step to finding product-market fit is covered in comprehensive detail, including reading guides, video tutorials, interactive exercises and a template library.
It’s everything a founder needs to go to market, engage customers and win revenue.
Build comprehensive marketing and sales messaging that translates what a startup’s product or service does into language that showcases the value it creates for customers.
Identify behavioral patterns and common characteristics of the people and companies most likely to buy a startup’s product or service and become great customers.
Define each step of a startup’s marketing and sales process to measure the go-to-market efforts and collect data that help remove friction and accelerate deal velocity.
Identify, outline and prioritize stage-relevant customer acquisitions strategies that help accelerate the path to product-market fit and acquire revenue with the highest ROI.
Test the market and acquire customers by developing, executing, iterating and optimizing outbound customer acquisition campaigns.
Actively manage a marketing and sales pipeline to acquire more customers and avoid deals from stalling or going dark.
"Founders across Atlantic Canada have benefited greatly from GrowthX! Their market development framework addresses all of the challenges entrepreneurs inevitably face in the pursuit of sales success."
Barry Bisson • CEO, Propel ICT
“With GrowthX, you have a team that’s working with you and thinking on how to adapt the general process to your market. They work with you! They understand the little aspects of your business, that’s the difference. They’re re ally involved in operation of the sales process.”
Agustina Sartori • Founder & CEO, GlamSt [Acquired by ULTA]
"We developed a great partnership with the GrowthX team. We believe it provides systematic guidance for our startups. Personally, as the Director leading Born2Global, I have a lot of respect for the team, especially their dedication and passion for startups."
JaeSung Ro • Director, K-ICT Born2Global
“We partnered with GrowthX to provide our MBA students with access to their Silicon Valley curriculum, including venture capital and finding product-market fit. Attendance at GrowthX seminars is larger than most class enrollments at Owen. GrowthX is helping Vanderbilt prepare our MBA students for the Innovation Economy.”
Michael Bryant • Director, Center for Entrepreneurship, Vanderbilt University Owen Graduate School of Management
“I’ll admit it, marketing doesn’t come naturally to Slope’s team of engineers, logisticians, and software developers. GrowthX used their market development expertise to help us think exponentially about novel ways to spread our message to our target audience. The team at GrowthX is more than just a group of check writers, they are partners who help us reach our full potential.”
Rust Felix • Founder & CEO, Slope.io
"Founders particularly valued their go-to-market insights as investors. We look forward to working with GrowthX to further develop the skills of our entrepreneurs and strengthen the ecosystem to continue supporting them."
Sandra Glasgow • Director, National Commercial Bank Jamaica Ltd
“Having GrowthX on your side is like having a co-founder that is an absolute authority on lean thinking, business strategy and achieving product-market fit.”
Sashank Purighalla • Founder/CEO, BOS Framework
Problem
Born2Global, a Korean Accelerator, helps high potential startups enter global markets. They had mentors and staff to support the startups but lacked the content, training and expertise to run a virtual product-market fit program.
Discovery
We developed a plan to create a custom virtual accelerator program by identifying the biggest go-to-market challenges that Korean startups face and selecting specific parts of the GrowthX MXP that address those challenges.
Results
We deliver a custom, virtual accelerator program for a cohort of 20 startups consisting of weekly cohort lectures, one-on-one coaching sessions, and a series of tangible exercises via video teleconferencing and Google Classroom. At the conclusion of each program, we deliver a detailed report showing a clear go-to-market strategy for each startup.
“We developed a great partnership with GrowthX. We believe it provides systematic go-to-market guidance for our startups entering the U.S market. They were fully dedicated to organize and co-host the meetings and interviews for the Korean startups with their potential customers. The startups and I were impressed by their skillful capacity to help Korean startups and garner market insights through these activities. No doubts in my mind that GrowthX demonstrated special qualities for the cross-border projects.”
JaeSung Ro • Director, Born2Global
Our turnkey platform enables you to instantly launch a fully-functioning, in-person or virtual program to help founders find product-market fit.
Our intuitive and enjoyable user interface makes it easy to onboard staff and mentors, seamlessly invite founders (rolling admissions or cohorts), and launch with confidence.
Our flexible platform enables you to customize the front-end with your color palette, font and logo. From log-in through program completion, fully showcase your brand identity.
The intuitive back-end dashboard also enables you to create a unique experience for your founders. Whether it’s custom stage-gates, mandatory actions, toggled functionality, public or private notifications, etc., the one constant is that you’re in control.
We know that providing access to experts is an important part of helping founders. That’s why we make it easy for your staff and mentor network to track progress and actively engage with a startup or group of startups. All based on the roles and responsibilities that you define, and a framework that unifies your network and delivers a consistent experience.
Our global network of experts is also available to work alongside your staff and founders, in a virtual-friendly environment so you have the cost-effective expert help you need, when you need it.
"Founders across Atlantic Canada have benefited greatly from GrowthX! Their market development framework addresses all of the challenges entrepreneurs inevitably face in the pursuit of sales success."
Barry Bisson • CEO, Propel ICT
“With GrowthX, you have a team that’s working with you and thinking on how to adapt the general process to your market. They work with you! They understand the little aspects of your business, that’s the difference. They’re re ally involved in operation of the sales process.”
Agustina Sartori • Founder & CEO, GlamSt [Acquired by ULTA]
"We developed a great partnership with the GrowthX team. We believe it provides systematic guidance for our startups. Personally, as the Director leading Born2Global, I have a lot of respect for the team, especially their dedication and passion for startups."
JaeSung Ro • Director, K-ICT Born2Global
“We partnered with GrowthX to provide our MBA students with access to their Silicon Valley curriculum, including venture capital and finding product-market fit. Attendance at GrowthX seminars is larger than most class enrollments at Owen. GrowthX is helping Vanderbilt prepare our MBA students for the Innovation Economy.”
Michael Bryant • Director, Center for Entrepreneurship, Vanderbilt University Owen Graduate School of Management
“I’ll admit it, marketing doesn’t come naturally to Slope’s team of engineers, logisticians, and software developers. GrowthX used their market development expertise to help us think exponentially about novel ways to spread our message to our target audience. The team at GrowthX is more than just a group of check writers, they are partners who help us reach our full potential.”
Rust Felix • Founder & CEO, Slope.io
"Founders particularly valued their go-to-market insights as investors. We look forward to working with GrowthX to further develop the skills of our entrepreneurs and strengthen the ecosystem to continue supporting them."
Sandra Glasgow • Director, National Commercial Bank Jamaica Ltd
“Having GrowthX on your side is like having a co-founder that is an absolute authority on lean thinking, business strategy and achieving product-market fit.”
Sashank Purighalla • Founder/CEO, BOS Framework
Problem
Propel, a Canadian Accelerator, had run a successful program for many years. They needed to transition from in-person guest speakers and mentors serving local founders to a more thorough and virtual-based curriculum that they could deliver remotely and at scale.
Discovery
We developed a plan to enable Propel to deliver the GrowthX MXP virtually and at scale by providing turn-key digital content, training for their EIRs and virtual lectures and workshops run by GrowthX.
Results
We enabled Propel to be self-sufficient by training and certifying their EIRs to deliver MXP, and our team of experts supplement their community with virtual fireside chats, interactive workshops and 1:1 training for their startups.
"Founders across Atlantic Canada have benefited greatly from GrowthX! Their market development framework addresses all of the challenges entrepreneurs inevitably face in the pursuit of sales success, and their venture capital workshop is a unique “founder centric” approach to preparing founders for understanding and raising venture capital."
Barry Bisson • CEO, Propel