Pillar
Growth traps
The deals that look big and aren’t. The marketing that buys vanity. The growth that breaks the company that earns it.
Most failed companies look like they were growing right up until the quarter they didn't. The growth was real. The trap underneath it was also real, and longer.
A growth trap is any pattern where the metric improves while the underlying business deteriorates. Revenue up, cash down. Logos added, churn deferred. ICP drifted, pipeline inflated. The trap is hard to see because the dashboard is reading the version of the company that's working. The version that's breaking lives one query deeper.
The essays here name the traps the operator can still escape. The deal that looks big and isn't. The marketing that buys vanity. The customer who's worth less than they cost. The growth that breaks the company that earns it.
Start here
Most Lead Magnets Are Liability Magnets
3,000 downloads, 200 calls, 4 deals: the guide that anyone will download builds a list of the wrong buyers. Add friction, gain intent.
Most Pilots Don't
Eleven enterprise pilots last year. Three converted to paid; eight signed intent letters, ran months, then quietly didn't renew.
Eight Minutes of Demo, Nine Days to Close
The rep who closed in nine days demoed for eight minutes, not thirty-five. Deals close when the rep stops performing the script and starts listening.
More on growth traps
- Referrals Are Not a Channel
- Doubling the Channel Halved It
- What Your Loudest Customer Costs
- Don't Hire a Head of Sales Yet
- The ranking with no buyers
- Winning the Open Rate, Losing the Inbox
- 40% of Signups, Gone by Tuesday
- 804 registrants, zero net customers
- Stop optimizing for the keyword nobody buys on
- Eighty-six integrations, four that work
- A twelve-week launch that froze the company for a quarter
- The retention number measured on the wrong cohort
- Don't Build a Waitlist You Can't Nurture
- Signups rose 30%. Revenue fell 12%.
- The competitor you copied into irrelevance