Jesper Åström: Why your company isn’t growing and how to fix it

This post is based on our podcast episode with Jesper Åström. Jesper is a growth expert who’s spent over 45,000 hours launching hundreds of tactical campaigns for companies around the world. You can watch the entire conversation here.

1. Branding = frequency and reach

In discussions of branding, the importance of creativity and distinctiveness often comes up. And while those things are important, Jesper highlighted that branding really boils down to a basic formula: reach x frequency. While creativity in branding is important for standing out, it’s the consistent and repeated exposure that really embeds a brand in people’s minds.

Once the fundamentals of directiveness are taken care of, e.g. unique package design and distinct brand colors, the key to long-term branding success comes from consistent exposure and effective media buying.

2. Different types of growth mistakes

Jesper points out that founders and entrepreneurs have different personality types, and each of these types tends to have strengths and weaknesses in certain areas or stages of growth.

Engineer entrepreneurs often struggle to move beyond the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and partnership stages. They are linear thinkers, which can limit them from exploring more broad growth strategies.

Marketers and business school types frequently overlook the potential of MVPs and partnerships. They lean heavily towards brand building and marketing, which can lead them to miss out on early opportunities for revenue and growth. This approach can delay reaching product-market fit.

Product-focused entrepreneurs are deeply focused on feature development, often neglecting brand-building and partnership opportunities.

Finally, visionary entrepreneurs aim for rapid progress, often not focusing enough on processes and detailed planning. This fast-paced approach can lead to missed opportunities in revenue generation and product improvement.

3. Growth hacking the physical world

Physical spaces offer huge opportunities for cost-effective and unconventional marketing strategies that connect directly with audiences in unexpected and impactful ways.

Something as simple as placing stickers with QR codes in locations where people typically have time on their hands (like waiting areas) can be very effective at driving traffic. This tactic capitalizes on human curiosity and boredom, turning everyday moments into opportunities for engagement.

A famous example is the Story Hotel in New York, which began placing surprise messages throughout its rooms. People found these notes and started sharing it on social media. For the cost of a few post-its, the hotel was able to generate significant reach on social media.

Watch episode: Why your company isn’t growing and how to fix it

Why your company isn’t growing and how to fix it – Youtube transcript

Today I’m joined by Jesper Åström I’m marketing expert who consults speaks and educates on the topic of growth Jesper has over 45,000 hours of tactical experience launching hundreds of digital campaigns for companies around the world welcome to the show Jesper thanks for having me how are you guys how are you doing I’m doing really good cool I’m doing really good I’m I’m very excited to talk about growth yeah something that we at genra think about a lot and you spent more time than probably almost anyone on Earth thinking about growth and not just thinking about actually doing it yeah and uh and and the thing is like growth is actually sort of a new What is growth marketing? thing in terms of the concept uh like we used to talk about digital tactics and and how to make things uh happen and then then there were the strategists and then it was us the tacticians and but now it’s become its whole own domain where where it has its own nice name that people feel attracted to and things like that and uh I appreciate the the coining of the of the thing but but yeah it’s about like delivering on tactics to to make things happen and uh if that leads to growth then we are all in a good place would you there let’s get into that right away because there’s a lot of terms in the marketing yeah sphere um would you say that there’s a important distinction between let’s say Performance Marketing digital marketing gross marketing how do you think about how do you think about that yeah I I mean I I think it is an important distinction because we we um so so first and foremost you like if you’re a really good growth marketer or a growth hacker or someone who works with growth you take more of a holistic uh point of view when you approach uh growth so you always start in uh what you should grow rather than the method you should grow it in h and then uh your next step is likely to look at the user behaviors and the user flows so you actually start in analytics uh and try to figure out and and in research and try to figure out what is it that that is limiting growth right now um then all of these other things such as uh Performance Marketing or or ad buying planning uh you know those are tactics in order to make the growth happen or those are tools in the toolbox so whether or I need to use SEO or I need to use search engine marketing email marketing um a physical place you know like uh uh bus stop or or the back of a uh sink in a in a toilet or whatever I need to do in order to to to get that growth going uh that’s what’s going to happen but it’s also a lot about product development and creating nice uh user flows once the user has signed up so they want to include other people um it’s about U making the existing customers you know either buy more or do more every time um they they come to visit so I would say that growth uh without the the the suffix or the second word is is about figuring out how to actually make the thing that you want growing to happen H and then the other things are just um you know derivatives of that H so so yeah and and I I mean there’s so I think the whole thing here is like um since growth has gotten all the attention uh a lot of things has been started to be called growth nowadays uh but but there is no good or bad it’s really good to be really good at any of the the the you know SEO or sem or or Performance Marketing whatever is it is that you call it it’s really good to be tactically good at that um however it’s a different thing than when you focus on what it is that actually makes a business grow so yeah totally and I know I agree I think that people confuse the tactics like you said the derivatives uh with the actual thing itself so if you talk about that what is do you have any kind Jesper’s framework for why and how companies grow of framework or process for when it comes to figuring out what is the what is limiting growth right now yeah is there anything how how do you approach that question I mean there are some general uh rules or some general things in terms of of growth and they all have to do with the like the the size of the company and where they are at in their market right now and so if we look at early stage uh startups they are in some kind of incubation phase where they might not even have a good like MVP and uh they’re out there looking for you know Finding good ways in which they can sell the product that they’ve developed uh in the best case scenario they developed a product that there is an actional Market need for in other cases you end up with two nerds who have been uh developing something which has no market value because no one needs it it’s just the cool thing and then you never reach MVP uh but the whole idea there in the beginning is to you know try to sell your thing so that it can sell itself and that’s a lot of hustle like that’s a lot of the whole hustle culture you know making sure that you find um a way in which you can express the value of your product uh so simple that it can be R told you know and and all of the kpis you’re looking for there is you know time to wow like does a user if you talk about an app like the user comes into your app and then they come back without you calling for them uh then they’ve likely found the use case for your app if you look at uh purchases you know how like what does the uh repurchase rate does do you have a loyalty product yeah did that happen within two weeks do you have a transactional product yeah did it happen on the first or second visit or you know those types of metrics that’s what you’re looking for or uh did someone H come back to your customer service and ask a relevant question you know um there are a lot of things that you get to think about in the beginning of of a project or or of a of a of a growth process that have all to do with trying to figure out what is the best way I can sell my product in and that’s a lot of oneto one H and and that’s not always the nice nicest thing to tell um like a an entrepreneur who who who has been promising the investors a lot of uplift and a lot of you know viral coefficients and things like that but it’s what you have to do um and then as they move into that when they once they figured out the the sort of what they are selling or how to sell it moreover they move into a phase where as those who are successful are really good at acquiring Partners H and so this can be anything that has to do with distribution so you figure out where are your likely customers and what partners are already in contact with them and then you strike essentially what is affiliate deals or sales deals with them where you they earn commission in one way or another these Partners can be established companies such as large uh retailers and you get you know real estate by being present in their offering uh or they can be influencers uh who act as Gatekeepers pointing people in your your direction but but unless you have that that uh sales pitch covered when you contact the partners uh you won’t do very well because the partner even though you have a great sales pitch when you meet the partner the partner will be dissatisfied in in a short run then when we move into the third phase uh you know it’s it’s all about F first and foremost now you’re starting to get a a substantial user base um and before you start getting a substantial user base and when I said substantial I mean you can do some testing on them you can uh have some conversations with them they are using your product without you calling them back you know those types of things uh then it’s the time to to start moving into uh looking at the Performance Marketing uh and to start looking at uh referral marketing and and when it comes to uh Performance Marketing what you should focus on are those you know the longtail easy ones the hopefully if it’s a growing market then that’s another thing you know then you can probably go and compete for the big words but if you’re growing in into like with an alternative service to something that already exists or a substitute to something that already exists then you need to go do the cheap stuff um and then uh try to figure out a way in which you can make your existing customers um increase the value of your service product or or app um they increase it by including other people so that’s the whole referral business uh many people are like yeah can we make people share and I’m like no your duty is to figure out how does a user increase the value of this Whatever It Is by including other people in it so can you trigger conversations like even though you have a fmcg product in a in a in a store you know you can put conversational pieces on there I mean Ole built their whole uh business case on creating conversations around Oley and they use their packaging really well then and so it’s possible for others to do referral you know marketing as well um at some point in time the Performance Marketing the the the the value of Performance Marketing goes down I mean you still need to do it because it will pull in profitable customers to you uh but the marginal cost of it goes up uh and that’s for everyone it doesn’t matter how how great of an agent see you are the marginal cost with more competition coming in you know the cost will go up so it can’t be the the sole thing that drives your growth and then what you really need to do is to start spending money on on brand um if let’s say the product has been driving your brand in the beginning uh because customers are satisfied with you and things like that um in um in at this point in time you should switch your your uh marketing budget to like primarily focus on on on branding and uh uh branding is all about reach and frequency there is no there is no other trick there people can talk about you know creativity all they want and yes there is some some some proof to that but just annoy the leveling crap out of people and they will remember you not annoy but you know what I mean like repeat repeat repeat rinse and repeat um and then people will will re remember your brand and what you’re about um I know that’s a controversial statement the but but but we’re looking at the the the numbers that’s essentially what you have to focus on uh I must go back a little bit in terms of branding because if you are entering if you’re building a new market and the demand for your product in a new market uh you should actually start with brand if you have the Media budget you should start building you know paying for for that already in the beginning because you have no competition so it will be cheap but that’s a mar case that that rarely rarely happens if you’re not launching something completely new but once you figured out like once you switched your budet into to a brand uh then you know you will see increases in your conversion rates you’ll see increases in your usage rate you will see increasing your search demand for your brand and things like that so those are the types of metrics you’re looking at um and this is really the time where you start moving into uh product Le uh growth uh whereas your product should drive your growth completely so it’s sort of a uh a referral marketing or steroids uh where you look at everything from the onboarding you could have done that before but this is really where it starts you know the compound in interest starts adding up you know for every new user if they add point one more users you know that’s 10% cost saving for you and and so you start building um functionality throughout your whole user Journeys uh where people uh increase the value of using your product by inviting other people uh and so that’s that’s the one question uh that that then remains like how can we increase the value of our product to our consumer so that they include other people in their usage and there are tons of tactics to do that and and you can run campaigns that are creative you can build communities you can you know depending upon what project you have you can do a lot of things uh um yeah I mean just look at just to take because a lot of people who are listening to this will probably think about physical products uh digital products is make sense you know to have some kind of viral inviter before you register your account and then once you’ve B bought a product or or done something in the app you can share that experience or get someone’s comment feedback on that experience but I think a lot of it’s going back to when it comes to physical product it comes down to a lot of community building and network building um whereas you have um uh Nike with the runners Community uh stadium in Sweden that have done the join the movement thingy uh you have a lot of those things where you can sort of build your identity but there is also some strong we in that H and that helps you build and maintain your your brand position uh if you’re good at at at at creating that so it works the the the principles of product Le marketing is very applicable when it comes to to um physical products as well although the the what you do might be a digital thing such as a like a way for people to network with each other sorry that was a long rant but yeah that no that was that was perfect like in 10 minutes you essentially laid out this framework for how to think about growth and I think you made a really good case for that all of these things that we talk about as marketers they’re all just tools yeah you choose the right tools depending on your your stage as a whatever maturity yeah do you just a question do you find that it’s often that whether it’s new companies or existing companies launching new Types of entrepreneurs and the different marketing mistakes they make products that they try to bypass let’s say stage number one and two product and Partnerships because they have the Media budget and so they start pumping out media lots of Performance Marketing or brand marketing they get some traction and they confuse that with actual real results but they’re it’s very sustainable like do do you find that that happens so it depends on the entrepreneur and the background of the entrepreneur so if the entrepreneur is an engineer then they never move past the MVP and the partner stage because that’s a very linear way of working and usually they are linear kind of thinking people uh and yeah that’s the generalization but that’s my experience uh looking at uh when we talk about marketers and and you know business school people who are entrepreneurs then they tend to not want to work some much with the MVP or with the Partnerships but they rather focus on the marketing and the brand building and the that stuff and so they skipped that part where they could have earned easy money in the beginning H and could have created some initial growth um and then when we come to product people you know people who have you know often people are really into something um and then they develop a lot of features you know product people and and uh they don’t necessarily care about the brand or uh about creting Partners uh but they want just want to improve their product so each type or those are the most common types of entrepreneurs that I work with each type have uh a different set of of uh of um problems and then you have the Visionary entrepreneur and those guys are really difficult to work with because they just want to easy and difficult to work with when it comes to product development and enhancement and growth because they want everything to go so so ridiculous ly uh fast um that process doesn’t r that rarely interests them um so yeah it’s different for different um for different entrepreneurs and they if you don’t think about the whole scope of things you can do and think about what you’re missing depending upon where you are in your growth phase uh you’re missing a lot of Revenue and that’s that’s about it uh they can be very successful but they will be missing a lot of Revenue looking at those I know that Kinsey did a study of a thousand uh Tech startups in in uh in Europe uh and looking at those companies you know I could trace back you know okay yeah these were the ones who skipped that one and you know so so it was very interesting looking through uh their research on that or their report I don’t know if we should call it research but it was it was a report on on on different success growth strategies I want to start unpacking some of that with you but first I want to go back to something you said which I think I mean you pointed out that might Is branding just about reach and frequency? be a bit controversial which is branding is just fre reach a frequency like there’s a formula to it so could you unpack that a little bit because there’s this idea that first of all the message matters a lot the creativity the the positioning matters a lot the channel dis you know placements and channels matter a lot but you’re saying essentially there’s a formula to it yeah can you talk about that I mean uh yeah let’s step on some toes h i mean the there is this thing like you know we can talk about creativity and messaging and things like that and that has to make you stand out you know you can’t come and say like you know your colors like your identity your visual identity it has to be different from what already exists that’s how you if you if you start pouring money into something that is very similar to something else you’re building their brand equally you’re building yours you know and likely if they’ve existed previously to you in the market you’re building their brand uh because people already have some kind of relationship with them so I don’t think that is a is a good strategy regardless of how much money you pour into it but once you figured out those Cosmetics you know like you are positioned in a in a distinctly different way than your competitors and in terms of visual identity H then you you you can pretty much pour uh money into a channel uh that is cheapest to get most eyeballs on it um and and um I mean I’ve been looking through the the research from from um you know Peter Fields Benet benett and Fields and and Mark Ritson and all of them and I know that when they talk on the conferences uh it’s it’s uh a lot of um you know they are funny people they’re good in the rhetorics but when we look at the research behind it it seems to be that what really is the distinctly uh the thing that that is really you know uh coming out of the research is that it’s reach and frequency you need to reach a lot of people and you need to reach them a lot of times if you do that then people will remember you uh and and I mean I’ve I’ve worked with some fantastic creatives throughout the years um they’re rare uh that they dare to do you know if you look at fashion magazines for example they all look the same no one everyone there calls themselves creative but none of them are creative uh I would say because they you know it just looks all the same so so they are Arty but they’re not art because they’re they don’t provoke anyone everyone’s completely comfortable when they’re looking at it a good creative when I work with a good creative my job becomes 10 times easier because I might need a frequency of two for someone to remember it completely coming back to Oley although they have their problems and now because they don’t look at data as they say um theyan I mean they had a wonderful creative so it’s easier to to to build something like that and people will be more likely to share something like that so the interest becomes higher you know the share rate becomes higher um but but in terms of you know marketing and display advertising and video and TV and and all of those radio you know yeah that’s the unpacking of that when we look I mean even even looking at I I was digging through research about humor in in in advertising like what what actually works then then uh it has some positive effect but it was mostly on ad recall uh so they remember the ad but they don’t necessarily remember the brand H and then I looked through here in in Sweden with the um they have a really good research team within marketing here um s mhm crowns something M Mick dalan and and someone else um was involved and they looked at how much creativity actually contributed to to it and they found that it did contribute to it uh to to people remembering and people having a having like the long-term growth of of the um uh of a of a brand um but since it’s such a highrisk variable uh I don’t tend to depend on it in order to drive growth uh if you get the the the Baseline done so that you look different and you sound different then then it’s down to reaching frequency yeah I think that’s a good point like there’s a um it might be a bit of like a I don’t know lazy but but you know marketers or maybe company saying yeah you know just we don’t have a lot of money to spend so just be creative yeah but you know it’s not about either or like you no and I think choosing for like that yeah sorry go ahead no no and and that is for this when we talk about advertising uh when we then talk about product L growth for example then creativity is but then it’s not like you know um the same kind it’s not it’s not making you distinctly different and and making you rememberable and things like that but it’s it’s more you don’t don’t have to create some news you just have to create value to your to your visitor and that’s a creative job to do uh and and as long as you do that in a way in which they need to include other people to increase that value then your product will start growing um and then then then you need then all you do is work creatively um so creativity is important but but I wouldn’t say that I would bet my bet my my my uh life on it um yeah makes sense um someone who’s been listening to this podcast and and Budgeting, meetings, and other things companies need to change if they want growth thinking about you know wow this growth kind of this growth marketing a growth approach sounds really good we should Implement some of it um they’ve also heard you name off like a thousand different tactics and and and tools and ways to achieve growth um so what is the what is the realistic way for a company who’s not working in this way necessarily today to actually start implementing is it that you need this you know let’s call it unicor person like a yesb Orr who has a completely a perfect like helicopter view of all the tactics understands the business and can then you know hire or contract spe people with specific skills whether it’s SEO or a package design or PR or pay social whatever it is as needed like how would you recommend or suggest that a company starts implementing growth marketing what does it require in terms of the organization uh what it requires is is easy uh it’s um a remake of budgeting meaning that you shouldn’t set a budget that is this is how much we’re going to spend but you should moreover set a budget on this is you know this is how much work we we are allowed to do I don’t know the the the the budget needs to be dynamic and flexible because what if you start doing something that is really really really good then you need to shift your existing money into that space in order to deplete that opportunity so to speak um not all of your money I mean hopefully you have I like the Coca-Cola liquid content uh distribution where you spend 10% on crazy ideas 20% on developing new things and improving existing things and that 70 thing 70% on things that already work and so so when I talk about growth and growth mindset I’m talking about those 20% not the 10% that’s what that’s what the creatives are are working with uh in my mind because it’s like like high risk High reward um but but those 20% of the budget uh that needs to be you know you need to be able to move that fast once you see that something is working um so budget is one thing a second thing is do more and and talk less and this is like this sounds like a cliche quote on on Instagram but but it’s so true uh the one thing that that growing startups do more than uh those who don’t is that they do less Keynotes and they do more pres they they they do more more things they try more things and I hate the concept of fail fast because if you fail a lot and fast you know you will go to the the bottom of the basement uh but you should just not be scared to try uh and to try to do things that’s how you improve your team uh and the people you’re working with also sounds like a cliche but it’s 100% true um that if you skip a meeting and instead you take the computer to the me like an antisocial meeting no one greets everyone with how are you doing and here is my coffee and there is yours and and things like that let’s plan something don’t plan just just decide beforehand like yeah we’re going to improve our conversion rates and then like do anyone has have any ideas I have this idea yeah let’s try it uh they will figure out and that’s a growth mindset and then I had a third one in my head because you’re supposed to have three but but but but I I don’t remember what it was but I mean doing more do having less meetings and doing more things and and also having good investors that that actually allow you to do that instead of you know reporting to the investors all the time about your your your your situation because normally like investors they’re too impatient to let you create the dashboards that would then make the reporting easy to to then you know so so I mean having great investors that that understand and uh like either the necessity of spending a lot of time setting up what you’re going to measure in the beginning or you have good investors that are comfortable with you not reporting and you’re not having fancy slides when you do your reporting but you can do it from an Excel if you have investors like that you’re in a really good place you know if you’re if you’re an early stage um uh company where you can’t have someone who is employed for that so um in terms of your your question I would say that it is possible to it’s difficult if you have a marketing background and you start working with growth um then you will find it really com uncomfortable to take responsibility for both the product and the sales process you know uh and also customer satisfaction like customer service um there is this like in many companies there is this new role of of like customer like cxo like customer experience you know and I think that’s good uh those are being mature companies that are maturing towards the growth mindset um and and also I mean politics is a big problem for large companies and and the you you know even though you even though I just said that the fail fasting is something that makes me allergic uh you know politics uh makes people not there to do anything and so if you have a lot of politics in an organization then you won’t be able to to um uh to work with growth because you will fail a lot of times like at least half of the times of the attempts you do and that’s a high success rate but the ones one the the times you you win you win you win you win you win big and and uh so so if you have those prerequisites then you can succeed but there are very few mature companies that do have those things so instead of integrating it into the organization they make a um a like whatever their brand name is and then they put an X maybe not anymore but they they make a a pilot project of it uh but it needs to be integrated into the whole company and and uh all the roles all the silos need to collaborate for it to work uh and that’s difficult because we are people and we have pride and we uh we put energy into to to things that are useless in terms of growth yeah I think like you said it’s it’s easy on paper but then in in actuality like the budgeting example you mentioned I think I’ve like and the companies I work with like less than 5% for sure are actually actually have a dynamic budget as opposed to static so it it does seem would you say it’s fair to say that that in order to implement this kind of growth thinking you cannot just hire a growth team or a growth person like it actually needs to go to the top of the company and it’s how you think about everything absolutely abely right absolutely um and and I mean there is there are a lot of things to borrow from the whole like agile world uh where where you you know you you put focus on some kind of improvement you want to do and then you make your project small enough to actually be able to move towards that uh goal um but but if you have a committee meeting where everyone decides what’s going to be on the front page and then you take in an expensive design agency that redesigns the whole website well then you’re stuck in readjusting everything to whatever that thing said out to be you should have a vision yeah but but generally that way of working where you’re done that if yeah that’s actually good uh thing to think about if you ever consider yourself done then you’re not working in a in a growth mindset you always have to be a little bit dissatisfied uh which might make you an un un unsuitable able date night person but it makes you a very suitable growth person that’s yeah that’s really interesting um I guess it also then the people who are suited for growth it does come down to a lot to personality maybe would you say as opposed to just simply skill set of knowledge yeah and and the whole team there where you have someone who is a little bit crazy uh someone who just wants to come to work and do their list uh and then you have someone who can sort of think about money all the time someone really wants to win you know uh and when you scale that you don’t need one more person who really wants to win because that person will exist and and will be able to handle a 100 uh collaborators uh but uh maybe after a while you need two or three crazy people uh but the most of the people you need are the people who actually do things and they do them do them do them um and uh so those three Minds that’s will work well in a team uh of this sort you work with uh a lot of companies hundred compas you’ve studied What companies like Voi and Spotify get right about growth like you just mentioned youve studied a lot of the the successful startups and so on um any any kind of examples that stand out in terms of teams that have been able to really figure out this growth uh growth Market mindset and maybe have had some kind of innovative um Solutions when it comes to driving growth yeah so looking at stuff from the outside uh I mean my favorite uh right now and I use it always as an example and I have no idea how they work internally it’s just that whatever they do is really really beautiful and that’s a voice scooter company um the electric scooter and they’ve managed to go from being sort of an identity product where people were like yeah I’m on top of when they went on the scooter to being and becoming a community for those users who are are responsible drivers and they have done it by using H the communication in their app you know you had to take a photo of yourself with a helmet you had to park in a good safe SPO Zone you have to take a photo of the the scooter once you step it step off so they’ve integrated their whole like like what we are our culture they’ve integrated into the product experience and I think that that’s really beautiful um I think that uh in terms of biggies I think that Spotify has really figured out uh two aspects of solving user needs and it’s the social need once they started signing up new podcasts uh to their platform I need Spotify in order to take part in those conversations so I the social need of having Spotify increase and so I will I will not churn because I need Spotify in order to listen to those podcast that I use to have conversations with others H and from an emotional perspective their whole um uh you know the annual uh W WAP uh they added a feature this year which makes it uh so beautiful start like sound like Trump so beautiful but but they added something this year which was that the artist could send a message back to to the people who listen to that artist the most and I think that that’s just like you know I get a strong emotion already when you saw the artists that you listen the most to you’re like oh look at who I am blah blah blah you know that’s an emotional statement so from the social statement I need them to take part in conversations to the emotional statements of like yes I am important to the artist that I like the most uh the only thing they haven’t figured out yet is the functional thing about discovering new music uh and so they’re trying they’re trying so hard and you can see see it they’re pushing the new the signs so you should click on something they’re adding songs to your playlists they’re you know and and I mean it’s a it’s a big ask for them to do it but they’ve solved two out of three uh so so so that that that’s cool I really like what they’re doing new um I’m trying to think of think of some unexpected company that I really appreciate for what they’re doing um I mean the whole uh so let’s let’s take an example of of U if you’re into watches for example uh you you have uh what are they called Bazar luxury Bazar uh who have built a brand on YouTube and now is you know they’re hundred million do company or even more so now than before they’re growing although there is a recession although there is a drop in watch prices they’re still growing month by month and they’re doing that because they’ve engaged a community using YouTube and they be building a network there that they then can capitalize of uh in terms of sales um and and whereas Mr Beast is you know the king of that um where where he can launch whatever he wants as long it it holds a quality uh that he he he likes he had the burger company that it just closed down or he sued them at least because they didn’t have the quality that he wanted so those are some examples of of things that started out as nothing but then they employed I don’t know if voy did but I know the others did H employed these types of tactics in order to to make sure that they grow through Partnerships referrals and now they’re working a lot with product Le marketing so I think those are really really awesome examples uh the Spotify one is like yeah like you said it seems so it seems so obvious once they do it and it’s like of course this is going to this is going to have you know you don’t need to know see the numbers know that this is going to have a great great impact on retention and then you see traditional Media or like like they paid $100 million for Joe Rogan and and everyone who who understands why they everyone is like yeah only you know he has 10 million followers the subscription is like I don’t know $11 a month you know just make them do the math you know it’s like cheap they’re making it back in a month yeah like they’re really doing a they’re doing a lot of good things I’ve I mean Daniel the the CEO is obviously incredibly smart and thoughtful helpful guy um you you mentioned earlier Oley um How to grow in the physical world they how how they were using I mean they use their packaging they were huge on outdoor advertising at least here in Finland they to over the market um any examples of uh any examples of kind of um physical physical um opportunities cuz growth marketing is often seen as this digital thing maybe it’s predominant digital but we also live in a physical world so world so is there anything any kind of physical opportunities that you know you think are particularly effective or maybe underutilized uh I mean put putting stickers where people are bored is the best growth hack you can you can uh come up with putting a QR code on the sticker where people are bored then then you know you’re in a awesome place um thinking like yeah in general like thinking where people have time to to spend with you then then that would be a good place in the physical world but then also in terms of Partners like the Second Step uh if you think about them Solly as distribution Partners in a physical space let’s say they are a restaurant chain or they are a um franchise for some uh um cleaning service or they are uh the ones who are uh cleaning the the or or renovating the the locomotives or the you know thinking outside the box in terms of who actually meets the people that I need to talk to H airplanes who who spends time there um nature in the middle of nature you know like why don’t people use in the middle of nature as something that will eventually go completely B Bonas viral because you put something there and then whoever discovers it it will create the story you know uh and and um you know digging into different types of of uh existing communities like the fishing Community the watch Community the the Sailing Community the the um you guys in Finland you have the play horse Community you know the and so you know understanding that and then figuring out where those guys spend time uh most people don’t do that H because paying for for Facebook ad ads it will be expensive and it will definitely be more expensive than that partnership that actually meets your your uh your customers right away um and I mean think about it if you have something that caters to to people in a hospital for example why don’t strike a deal with the hospital restaurants because they’re all like like purchased on public tenders so there is they don’t just have one Hospital you know um and they will charge you 100,000 and if you spend 100,000 on Facebook you will not reach and you cannot you know Target diagnosis on Facebook so it won’t provide to all of your growth but it will be in the beginning when you’re you know trying out then thinking about the physical world and Partnerships is super good also if you have bought a a right to let’s say a festival or something like that then consider that space a a website and what kind of conversion points can you put there what can you use the toilets for what can you use the the the walls and how can you you know make people walk into places yeah so the physical is there and P material yeah what can you do that that that people want to make it for this the story hotel in in in New York that had those little I think it was the first one this is old example but they had these little just as Gmail had the the little set off you know that made people and invite other people they had little surprise messages put all over your room and people started taking photos of that and sending it up on social media I think that works beautifully still because it’s surprising it’s nice you know I think that’s such a beautiful example of something that literally every single Hotel could do like you don’t need to be you don’t need to have anything special you just need to have the creat creativity and then just like you said instead of planning and thinking about it just doing it and you’ll see very quickly if it’s working or not and one thing I think one thing interesting they mentioned about the Partnerships is that I I agree I think that those are very underutilized but what what Partnerships also do is that when you’re launching a new product or or or or whatever it is you lack credibility and with Partnerships you can borrow some of their credibility so that immediately you go from like what’s this new sketchy thing like oh this seems to be something that I could consider to eventually use for sure the whole gatekeeper thingy yeah How Jesper comes up with new experiments and tactics exactly um yes but what are your favorite resources um when it comes to learning about because you’re a well of you know examples and benchmarks like where do you learn all this stuff is there are there blogs podcasts books how do you keep track of everything that’s happening and and and and New Growth tactics and strategies i t I tend to look for problems so if I have an interesting enough problem then I I spend the time to try stuff and so but but the difficulty is finding an interesting problem instead of having you know ABC ABC always doing the same the same thing uh and so looking for trouble is what makes you really good uh solving new problems all the time and I mean of late because of um like open Ai and because of of the capabilities you know you don’t you don’t have to uh you don’t you can build your own prototypes and so you can test things a lot easier as a as a you know even if you are an experienced programmer to just uh try things out and see if they work and and see if the logic behind your new you like onboarding funnel if it actually works you know so so And discussing with with with chat GPT is amazing when it comes to digital tactics um and just ask it you know if you’re about to launch a new service ask it and then ask questions again it will give you Splendid like starting points um that then then and all the sourcing you know the things that previously have taken hours and hours and hours now take like you know you ask the question and then give me 100 examples and then you go put on a coffee you come back and your sourcing is done so yeah yeah that’s been I’ve been using that as well and it’s um it feels like a cheat code for sure it’s it feels unfair a book A book no one should not read uh is uh 101 principles of design I think that’s the best book ever written Universal principles of design uh ER it’s a blue book uh it is it is the best uh thing about user behaviors and understanding people and users uh I think that in terms of humility and and and perspective um Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is also a book that you should should not go through your life without reading and also good to great as well is is you know foundational in terms of just being humble and understanding that that your ego is something that will be broken down by time and you need a good support system around you I think that’s really good those are really good recommendations um yes but it’s been a it’s been a fascinating conversation we could go on for hours and hours and hours but um for people who want to follow you on what you’re doing what’s the best place you have blog your you’re you’re active on LinkedIn where should people learn more about from January onwards they can go follow me on my YouTube channel I haven’t updated it for two years uh because I haven’t been inspired uh but now I am and I’m going to rejuvenate that uh on Instagram I just post the uh selfies so so H and on link I mean it depends I’m a I’m a very I don’t think twice before I post something so I mean it’s it’s not very planned and structured so people will be just disappointed the only place I could recommend is is is my YouTube channel because I really care about what I put out there okay I’m going to post put links to to put LinkedIn and YouTube so YouTube starting from next year um that’s a public public promise here to there to the listeners there is stuff there now too that might be valuable but but I wouldn’t bet on me putting anything out before January yeah okay well Jasper like I said it’s been a pleasure thank you so much for coming on and uh exciting to keep learning from you and and following all the the crazy stuff you’re doing thanks a lot for having me thanks thank you for listening you can find all episodes of the growth pod on on Spotify YouTube and apple [Music] podcasts