Most growth problemsaren’t solvedby doing more. — the right thing, repeatedly.
They’re solved by finding the one thing everyone is working around.
First Principle Growth finds what’s actually limiting growth at your B2B software company, picks the lever worth pulling, then builds and runs the marketing behind it. One senior operator. Strategy and execution in the same chair.
02The idea
First principles is subtraction. Remove what is assumed until only what is true remains. Then build from that.
Here is the whole method, performed on the list of things you have probably been told to do.
A manuscript of roughly a hundred growth tactics — post daily, rebrand, hire an agency, double the ad budget, and so on — that the red pen strikes through one by one.
The people who should buy this don’t yet understand why it’s different.
An example constraint
Question the premise
Most plans inherit their assumptions. Write them down. Cross out every one nobody has tested.
Find the constraint
There is usually one thing limiting growth. Not seven. Find it, name it, say it out loud.
Choose the lever
Of everything you could do, one move changes the constraint. The rest is activity.
Build the system
A lever pulled once is a campaign. A lever pulled every week, measured, is a system.
Execute
Then do the work. Properly. Ship, read the result, adjust. Repeat until it’s boring.
The people who should buy this don’t yet understand why it’s different.
An example constraint
Question the premise
Most plans inherit their assumptions. Write them down. Cross out every one nobody has tested.
Find the constraint
There is usually one thing limiting growth. Not seven. Find it, name it, say it out loud.
Choose the lever
Of everything you could do, one move changes the constraint. The rest is activity.
Build the system
A lever pulled once is a campaign. A lever pulled every week, measured, is a system.
Execute
Then do the work. Properly. Ship, read the result, adjust. Repeat until it’s boring.
This is the whole method. Everything below is what it looks like in practice.
03The problem
Heard in first conversations
Composite. Things founders say in first conversations, not quotes from clients.
“We need more leads.”
Usually a positioning problem wearing a demand costume.
“Our content isn’t working.”
It’s doing something. Nobody defined what.
“We’ve tried paid ads.”
Paid didn’t stop. The message did.
“We’re posting constantly.”
Volume is not a strategy.
“We don’t know what our message should be.”
Then that’s the constraint. Start there.
“We have tactics. We don’t have a system.”
Correct. That is the whole problem.
“We’re doing a lot. We’re not sure what’s moving the business.”
Then nothing is being decided. It’s being attempted.
Different sentences. Same problem. Nobody found the constraint.
You’ve seen this before. So have I. The difference is what happens next.
04The work
Strategy without execution is a document.
Execution without strategy is a calendar.1
| No. | Stage | What this means | What I actually do | Output |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | THINK | Decide what matters. |
| One page that says what we’re doing, and what we’re deliberately not. |
| 02 | BUILD | Turn the decision into a machine. |
| A marketing system that runs every week without a meeting. |
| 03 | RUN | Do the work. |
| Shipped work. Weekly. By me. |
| 04 | LEARN | Read the results honestly. |
| A sharper strategy. Back to row one. |
1Most agencies stop at BUILD. Most contractors start at RUN. The point is the whole circuit.
05One person
One brain.Zero handoffs.
How a decision travels at an agency
- You: “We need better positioning.”
- Account manager writes it up: “positioning refresh”
- Strategy reviews it Thursday: “brand deliverable”
- Deck.
- Alignment call: “Q3 creative sprint”
- Handoff to the people who do the work.
- Three weeks.
How it travels here
- 1. You tell me.
- 2. I change it.
That’s the whole list.
The person who finds the problem is the person who fixes it. No translation layer, no junior doing the thinking, no presentation of the work instead of the work. You talk to the operator.
- Intentionally small. Not small by accident.
- Senior thinking, not a senior pitch.
- Decisions in a conversation, not a deck.
06Who it’s for
Submission guidelines.
A journal says what it publishes and what it declines. So does this practice.
For
- B2B software with a real product and paying customers.1
- Growth that has stalled or turned unpredictable, and nobody can say exactly why.
- Founders who want senior thinking and the same person doing the work.
- You’d rather make one right decision than run ten activities.
- You’re willing to stop doing things.
- You care whether it still works in eighteen months.
Not for
- Pre-product. There’s nothing to grow yet.
- A pair of hands to run a plan that’s already been decided.
- Weekly decks over weekly work.
- A logo and a launch video by Friday.
- An agency-sized team on the invoice.
- The strategy validated, not questioned.
1I also work with a small number of real estate and local service businesses, by referral. Same thinking, different constraints. If that’s you, mention who sent you.
07Case files
Published in this format, with the client’s permission and the actual numbers. Or not at all.
| Problem | Insight | Decision | Execution | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [ CASE FILE — FORMAT SPECIMEN ] | ||||
What the founder said was wrong, and what was actually wrong. | The thing that became obvious once we questioned the premise. | The one lever we pulled, and the three we deliberately didn’t. | What got built and run, over what period, by me. | The number, with its caveats. Or the honest “it didn’t work, and here’s why”. |
No case file published yet. This is the format.
No anonymized “a fast-growing SaaS company” stories. When there is something to show, it will be here, in full.
08Working Papers
Working Papers.
Essays, breakdowns, experiments, and opinions I’ll defend on a call.
The playbook is the problem.
On why borrowed answers fail quietly, and what to ask instead.
1A playbook is a record of what worked for someone else.
The constraint is usually upstream of the channel.
Why “which channel” is the wrong first question.
Founder-led content fails when the founder is asked to perform, not to think in public.
What the format is for, and what it isn’t.
Paid ads amplify what is true.
A field guide to what to fix before you spend.
The lead you want is downstream of a sentence you haven’t written yet.
On messaging as the first conversion step.
An inventory of vanity metrics.
Numbers that feel like progress, and what to look at instead.
09The founder
I’m the person you’d talk to. I’m also the person who does the work.
First Principle Growth is a one-person practice based in Florida, working with B2B software founders anywhere. I care about what is true more than what is trending, and I would rather do the one thing that moves the business than the five that look busy.
I think in constraints and levers. I write. I run paid and founder content myself, and I read results without flinching. If that sounds like how you already think, we’ll get on.
Strategy and execution live in the same chair here on purpose. The gap between the person who decides and the person who ships is where most marketing goes wrong.
10The last page
Got a growth problemworth solving?
Tell me what’s stalled. I’ll tell you what I think is actually going on, and whether I’m the right person to fix it.
One conversation. No pitch. If it’s not a fit, you’ll hear that in the first reply.
Prefer email? hello@firstprinciplegrowth.com