First Principle Growth

Florida

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01Approach

Find the constraint.Pull the lever.Skip the theater.

The method, written down. Five stages, in order, each one a decision rather than a deliverable.

The five stages

  1. 01Question the premise

  2. 02Find the constraint

  3. 03Choose the lever

  4. 04Build the system

  5. 05Execute

The same five frames the homepage performs. Question the premise · Find the constraint · Choose the lever · Build the system · Execute.

01 / 05

Question the premise

Most plans inherit their assumptions. Write them down. Cross out every one nobody has tested.

Every growth plan I see arrives with assumptions already baked in. The channel was chosen because it worked at a previous company. The message was written to sound like the category. The metric was picked because a board likes it. Nobody has checked whether any of it is true here.

So the first job is to write the assumptions down and cross out every one that nobody has tested. It is uncomfortable. It is also the fastest way I know to find out what is actually going on.

What it looks like in practice

  • A written list of what the plan assumes
  • Which of those have evidence, and which are inherited
  • The questions nobody has asked the customers yet

02 / 05

Find the constraint

There is usually one thing limiting growth. Not seven. Find it, name it, say it out loud.

There is usually one thing limiting growth. Not seven. It might be that the people who should buy don’t understand why the product is different. It might be that the wrong people are reaching the site. It might be that the sales conversation undoes the marketing.

Finding it means looking at the whole thing — positioning, message, channel, conversion, sales — rather than the part someone has been hired to fix. Then naming it, in one sentence, out loud.

What it looks like in practice

  • One sentence that names the constraint
  • The evidence for it, and what would prove it wrong
  • What I am deliberately not going to work on

03 / 05

Choose the lever

Of everything you could do, one move changes the constraint. The rest is activity.

Of everything you could do, one move changes the constraint. The rest is activity. Choosing the lever is a decision about what deserves attention for the next stretch, and — just as importantly — what doesn’t.

The lever is usually less exciting than the tactics it replaces. That is normally how you know it is the right one.

What it looks like in practice

  • The lever, in plain language
  • The three moves we considered and set aside
  • How we will know it is working

04 / 05

Build the system

A lever pulled once is a campaign. A lever pulled every week, measured, is a system.

A lever pulled once is a campaign. A lever pulled every week, measured, is a system. Building the system means the content, the creative, the campaigns and the measurement are set up so the work repeats without a meeting to decide it.

This is where founder-led content, creative systems and campaign infrastructure get built — around the lever, not around a channel someone liked.

What it looks like in practice

  • A content or campaign system that runs weekly
  • Creative built to be tested, not admired
  • Measurement that answers one question honestly

05 / 05

Execute

Then do the work. Properly. Ship, read the result, adjust. Repeat until it’s boring.

Then the work. Paid acquisition, founder content, creative testing, growth experiments — run by me, not handed to a team you never meet. I ship, read the result without flinching, adjust, and repeat until it is boring.

Boring is the goal. A growth system you no longer have to think about is a system that is working.

What it looks like in practice

  • Shipped work, weekly
  • A short written read of what moved and what didn’t
  • The next decision, made in a conversation rather than a deck

08Working together

How an engagement starts.

  1. 01

    A conversation.

    You tell me what’s stalled and what you’ve already tried. I ask the questions nobody has asked yet. If I’m not the right person, you’ll hear that in the first reply.

  2. 02

    A diagnosis, in writing.

    One page. What I think the constraint is, the lever I’d pull, and what I would deliberately leave alone. You can disagree with it. That is the point of writing it down.

  3. 03

    Then the work.

    We agree the lever, I build the system around it and run it myself. Decisions happen in the same conversation they come up in. You talk to the operator, every week.

Engagements are shaped around the constraint, not around a package. Length and scope are agreed in the diagnosis, not assumed in advance.

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