Characteristics of Fast-Growing Startups

I worked 1-1 with over 100+ agencies in the last 24 months. Here’s the 7 things my fastest growing clients do that others don’t: 1. They are coachable →Each founder is actively looking for criticism, ways to improve, and has a hunger to be a better entrepreneur & leader. 2. They are always testing →Their script is “good enough”?  →Ads are converting “okay”?  →Close rate is “decent”? Not okay. They have to find a better iteration. They are focused on beating the control variation, no matter the department. Incremental improvements over a long period of time compound into serious gains. 3. They are never satisfied We celebrate our wins, and then find what’s next. There’s always something to improve, and the best founders know that. No time to rest on laurels when you’re wanting to build. 4. They have complete trust in the process For a little context, my most problematic/slowest growing clients, usually are doubters of the process. →Arguing every suggestion to feel “right”  →Not taking the recommended action seriously →Actively trying to find reasons why the process won’t work for them And hey, not everyone is going to be a perfect client. However, the ones who win the most: →Take the suggestion, challenge it in a healthy manner, and decide on an action  →Once they decide, they implement with speed and intensity  →They completely trust the direction and action plans we’ve laid out for them. 5. They operate with urgency →Operating with speed is a hack.  →Being able to move fast is an absolute advantage.  →Things that take months for some take a week or less with the right team, and this level of action shows on the financials each month. 6. They focus on their service delivery →They’re not always focused on the next deal. →They’re focused on the deals they’ve got.  →This allows revenue to compound each and every month.  →They’re obsessed with their client experience. 7. They have clearly defined goals →We know where why we’re building  →We know what the end goal is.  →This is different for every founder. Some people want to scale up, remove themselves, and take a vacation. Others want to scale as quickly as possible and have a large appetite for work and building a large team.  →Regardless of the goal, we know what we’re building towards, and build the growth strategy accordingly. Whenever I start working with a new client who hits these, I get really excited. Because I know they’ve got good things ahead. 

Here are the 7 traits I see in my fastest-growing clients. It’s not their niche. It’s not their “secret strategy.” It’s their behavior. 1️⃣ They’re coachable They want to be wrong. Because being wrong is cheaper than being stuck. 2️⃣ They’re allergic to “good enough” If the ad is “fine,” they assume it’s leaving money on the table. If the close rate is “decent,” they ask what breaks it. They’re always trying to beat the control. 3️⃣ They celebrate for 10 minutes, then go again Most people treat wins like a finish line. These people treat wins like proof the machine works… so they turn the dial up. 4️⃣ They don’t litigate every suggestion Slow clients love debating. Fast clients love executing. They’ll challenge ideas, sure. But once they pick a direction, they move like it’s a fire drill. 5️⃣ They move fast on purpose Speed is a cheat code. Not because it makes you smarter… but because it gives you more reps per month. More reps = more data = better decisions. 6️⃣ They obsess over delivery, not just sales They’re not only chasing the next client. They’re protecting the current ones. Better delivery = better retention = compounding revenue. It’s boring. It’s also how you win. 7️⃣ They know what game they’re playing Some want to scale and disappear to a beach. Some want to build an empire. Both can work. But the fastest growers have one thing in common: they’re not “figuring it out as they go.” They have a target, and everything ladders up to it. When a new client shows up with these traits, I get excited. Because at that point the strategy is the easy part. The hard part is the person. And they already have that handled.

I've worked with 20+ health tech startups in the last 12 months. Insane. But... that's not the point. The ones that scale fast don't have better products. They have better discipline. Here's what separates the companies growing 3x YoY from the ones stuck at 20% growth: 1. They define tight ICPs and defend them ruthlessly - Slow-growth companies chase every opportunity. Fast-growth companies disqualify aggressively. They know exactly who they're built for—and who they're not. They say no to deals that don't fit, even when the pipeline looks thin. 2. They prioritize clinical fluency over feature velocity - Slow-growth companies ship features. Fast-growth companies solve clinical problems. Their teams speak the language of care delivery, not software. They understand workflows, not just pain points. 3. They build repeatable motions before scaling headcount - Slow-growth companies hire to create capacity. Fast-growth companies hire to multiply what's already working. They don't add reps until the playbook is proven. They don't expand marketing until attribution is clear. 4. They treat data as operational truth, not vanity metrics - Slow-growth companies measure activity. Fast-growth companies measure conversion. They know their numbers: win rate by segment, time-to-close by persona, CAC payback by channel. They kill what doesn't work and double down on what does. 5. They align around buyer committees, not individual champions - Slow-growth companies sell to a person. Fast-growth companies sell to an organization. They map every stakeholder, build enablement for every persona, and create consensus across clinical, financial, and operational decision-makers. The pattern is clear: discipline beats ambition every time. Fast-growth companies don't do more. They do less, better, with more focus. If your growth has stalled, the answer isn't working harder. It's eliminating everything that doesn't directly drive revenue.

𝐏𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐬 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐩 𝐒𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 Most investors, operators, and early adopters look for the usual signals: strong founders, big markets, and fast growth. But some of the most reliable early indicators of success are less obvious. Here are five unconventional signs a startup might be onto something big. 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗙𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝗟𝗼𝘃𝗲 When founders abandon their original idea and follow what customers truly love, it shows they care deeply about solving a real problem. That mix of conviction and humility often leads them into much larger markets than they initially imagined. Slack started as an internal tool for a gaming company. The game failed, but the messaging tool took off. 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗛𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗪𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗮𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝘀 When customers hit the limits of your product and still refuse to leave, that’s a powerful sign. If they build their own tools on top, or duct-tape processes to keep using you, it signals you’ve built something deeply valuable. Notion users built intricate templates, databases, and operating systems for their teams long before the product fully supported those workflows. 𝗖𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗦𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗿𝘂𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 When a startup draws serious criticism early (from regulators, incumbents, or the media), it often means it’s challenging the status quo. Strong reactions from powerful stakeholders can be a leading indicator that the company is threatening entrenched interests. Uber’s rapid rise triggered legal challenges, protests, and public debate in city after city. The backlash showed how deeply it was reshaping transportation and labor models, creating a structural shift in how people move. 𝗘𝘅𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗝𝗼𝗶𝗻𝘀 𝗘𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 When very senior, highly capable people join a tiny, unproven startup, it’s rarely an accident. It signals that people with insider knowledge see something special: a huge technical challenge, a meaningful mission, or a market that’s about to inflect. Stripe recruited deeply experienced engineers and infrastructure talent early, long before it was widely known. That early concentration of technical expertise reflected the scale of their disruption in internet payments. 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗦𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗘𝗺𝗯𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 Founders who are openly embarrassed by their first version but ship it anyway are usually optimizing for learning, not ego. Getting a rough product into the wild early helps them discover what actually matters, often accelerating the path to product-market fit. Airbnb’s early site was bare-bones and scrappy, but it was enough to validate that strangers would stay in each other’s homes. 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀 Optimize for learning quickly, even when it feels uncomfortable or messy. .

One night, I suggested a few candidate names to a founder and their sales leader. Within 20 minutes, the VP had reached out, and calls were set up. This is the kind of urgency I see in every winning startup. That’s when it hit me, this was the 15th company I’ve worked with that had an exit. And it made me think about the patterns. Because out of the 160+ companies I’ve been involved with, not all of them make it. But the ones that do? They keep showing me the same three traits over and over again. [and I don't mean screenshots of their payout, which I did get and loved btw] 1️⃣ They move with ridiculous urgency It’s not just “move fast and break things” energy. It’s hear something → act on it → make progress before the day ends. Example: By midnight, the founder messaged me: “Thanks, we’ve got calls set up.” That’s the delta between idea and action, shrunk to nothing. 2️⃣ They seek feedback, and actually use it The struggling companies? They ask for feedback and then tell you why you’re wrong or why it won't work or how they're so friggin unique and special. The successful ones? They want your input, they know what they don’t know, and once you share your advice, they’re off to the races implementing it. 3️⃣ They build a killer sales management layer Not just a rockstar CRO or VP of Sales. They develop talent from SDR → AE → Manager, creating leaders who scale revenue for years. They invest in the middle, sales managers who will be tomorrow’s VPs. If you’re betting on a company or building one yourself, watch for these three traits. I’ve seen them in every exit I’ve been a part of. And without them… Well, I’ve seen how that story ends too.

The 7 traits shared by top-performing founders, based on data, not opinion Across research from MIT, Stanford, NBER, and multiple startup performance studies, one pattern is clear: Top founders succeed because of consistent behaviours, not luck or personality. These seven traits appear again and again in the data: 1. They choose the right problems Top founders don’t chase trends. They focus on large, painful, economically meaningful problems with real demand. 2. They make decisions fast and based on evidence They test assumptions quickly. They rely on data, customer signals, and small experiments instead of guessing. 3. They show measurable resilience Research repeatedly links resilience with higher founder longevity, better pivots, and stronger post-failure recovery. 4. They operate with discipline Clear priorities, structured execution, and consistent weekly progress separate high-performers from everyone else. 5. They prioritise customers over product features Top founders spend more time understanding customer behaviour than polishing features. This leads to faster product-market fit. 6. They build high talent density The most successful teams hire slowly, filter rigorously, and prioritise people who raise overall performance. 7. They think in long-term time horizons Founders who build enduring companies optimise for durability, not quick wins. This shows up in spending discipline, hiring choices, and strategic focus. Founders who consistently apply these behaviours build stronger companies, make clearer decisions, and scale more sustainably. What traits do you believe separate good founders from exceptional ones?

An LP prospect asked me a fantastic question in a meeting last week. We were walking through the top-quartile startups in our current fund, all now crossing $50–100M ARR just 1–2 years after raising from us. The LP paused and asked: “What are the common traits among those CEOs?” I loved that question! After thinking about it for a moment, three traits jumped out: 1️⃣ They’re hyper-decisive. They don’t get stuck in over-analysis or delay tough calls. Whether it’s a strategy pivot, cutting costs, a key hire, or parting ways with an employee, they take input when needed, they decide quickly, and then act. That decision momentum compounds dramatically over time when you add up all the hours, days, and weeks that indecision can quietly drain from a company. ⚡ 2️⃣ Their superpower is recruiting. They’re magnets for talent... always networking and building relationships. 🤝 They invest serious time (and dollars) into recruiting and talent management. Even when they’re not actively hiring, they’re sourcing. And when they do make a hire, it’s someone who lifts the whole organization, someone 10x better at that role than the CEO was when doing it themselves. 🚀 3️⃣ They know their numbers cold. This one is a bit contrarian... beyond the basic financials and forecasts, they obsess over the metrics that truly drive the business. They can sell a big vision, but they’re also fluent in the detailed levers for growth and always tuned into leading indicator KPIs. 📊 They never answer a question about funnel metrics, CAC, retention, or pipeline coverage with, “Let me check and get back to you.” When you think about it, these traits underlie the company's culture as it grows beyond founder-led sales, ops, and recruiting. I’m curious what other investors think. What traits stand out in your top Founding CEOs? Ali Ansari Avante Price Zaid Rahman #startups #founders #venturecapital