The Importance of Asking ‘So What’ in Growth Hacking

Growth hacking is a crucial aspect of any startup or scale-ups success. However, many companies struggle to differentiate their features from the benefits they offer. This can be a major roadblock in their growth journey, especially in today’s challenging times where funding is being pulled back and profitability is the focus.

One of the key methods in growth hacking is asking “so what”. This simple question can help startups and scale-ups understand the benefits of their product and how they can impact their target customer’s businesses. The answer to this question should be clear and concise and should resonate with the target customer.

Smart companies and founders understand the importance of turning features into benefits and take the time to come up with different versions of the “so what” answer for each target customer segment (ICP). This allows them to tailor their marketing and sales strategies to different ICPs and territories. However, many startups and scale-ups stop too early and come up with “easy” answers internally, especially if it is run by people who have been “long in the business” and know their products inside and out.

Managers with this mentality will drive the company down on its needs before they agree to take a look at the mismatch between the benefits they offer and what the customer is actually willing to pay for.

Market studies and interviews are important and many traditional managers love them so much that they are willing to put enormous budgets on large studies and interviews, but at the same time refuse to commit to building a solid MVP solution or feature and testing the product market fit along with the price market fit.

I find this one of the hardest things to try and convince a team of traditional managers and founders of. Because of the brutal transparency in going to market with an MVP and seeing who will pay for it and how much the appetite for these types of growth hacks is extremely low. I especially see this with companies that have founders and managers coming from large organizations and are used to being able to roll from one financial quarter to another with their “we will wait and see” attitude.

My advice is extremely transparent: It is not until a transaction…