Hi there,

From feature prioritisation models to cross-selling strategies that drive up revenue, finding smart-money investors with the right agenda to mastering incremental innovation for scale, we’re here to add value at every stage of your innovation journey:

1. Startup Phase

2. Growth Phase

3. Scale/Sale Phase

Building Products That Sell Themselves

Customer-led innovation is the art of understanding your users deeply and building solutions they can’t resist. Forget the Funnels' Georgiana Laudy advocates in this Lenny interview for 1) mapping customer journeys, 2) focusing on their struggles, and 3) aligning milestones with measurable outcomes. By 4) studying your best customers – those with urgent needs and high engagement – you can uncover the "aha moments" that turn users into advocates. For example, SparkToro doubled its free-to-paid conversion rate by prioritising features that delivered immediate value to its core users. The key is learning how to identify these moments and bring them front and centre in your product.

Prioritising Features Like a Pro

Building great products means knowing which features deserve your attention. This video by PM education provider, Product School, showcases some of the top feature prioritisation frameworks quite well. See how: 1) the Moscow Method helps you focus, 2) RICE Scoring helps you weigh impact, 3) the Kano Model helps you elevate while 4) the Value/Effort Matrix helps you keep it real and good old 5) Feasibility/Desirability/Viability guides your technical decisions.

Creating Partnerships That Accelerate Growth

Partnerships can be an excellent lever for growth, and as US founder Roland Frasier points out here, even a small/new startup can collaborate with a scale-up so successfully, the partnership can last for years. But how do you find potential partners? Brand builder Jess Singh advises here to 1) start within your own network and then 2) approach other founders and openly ask them about their product. Crunchbase’s revenue partnership manager, Etan Grosinger, even says you can turn your competitors into partners.

Are you in the start phase? Have questions? Hit reply and let us know how we can help.

Cross-Selling and Upselling Strategies to Maximise Revenue

Those in e-commerce will know it’s almost impossible to turn a profit on the first sale these days, the play is rather to soak up the high CAC so you can get the customer on the books and then start making money on the repeat business. But, that doesn’t mean you can’t try to drive up the basket price as much as possible. In this retail data management system’s video, they suggest 1) cross-selling (adding additional purchases) by creating collections by grouping products or making recommendations. For 2) upselling (getting the customer to buy a more expensive option), try offering premium options and offer comparisons to allow the user to make the decision. Note: This is not only for e-commerce, the same principles apply to any business.

Funding Pitfalls to Avoid

Serial US founder and VC advisor Carine Clark mentions in this interview with Brigham Young University that she personally works to help young founders avoid: 1) Taking too much money too early on in the journey and then either 2) losing equity control or being 3) forced into different directions because of misaligned vision and timelines. She says she always looks to advise people to bootstrap as long as possible and then look for key strategic investments, rather than large sums from investors who won’t support you in other ways.

How to Find Investors Who Bring More Than Just Money

It’s surprisingly easy to raise money from the wrong investor type. A strategic investor or smart money investor is one that brings more than capital, they bring a specific strategic advantage or experience in your sector that can unlock faster growth or other non-monetary benefits – Forbes wrote about it a while ago. To find these types of investors, look to other founders who’ve exited in your industry, those who specialise in your niche or even look at corporate VCs and venture studios like Next176, which brings all the might of Old Mutual with it.

Need help growing faster? Maybe it's augmenting your team, or perhaps coffee with one of our growth experts — either way, hit reply and let’s find your solution.

Scaling Through Incremental Innovation

Not every innovation needs to be earth-shattering. If you have a successful product with users and steady revenue, you might want to innovate incrementally. As this University of Minnesota webinar shows, core innovation is 1) making small, iterative updates to existing products, like enhancing usability, bolstering the backend or adding valuable new features. The next step of innovation is to 2) gather data from your existing users, and then develop new/related products to fulfil some of their other needs.

Developing the Leaders Your Company Needs

In his landmark Ted Talk, PhD leadership consultant Ryan Gottfredson proposed a radical idea: 75% of companies feel their leadership development programmes are not effective because the cause of bad leaders is not a lack of skills but a tendency to want to self-protect. Countless interviews with leaders have shown that people in leadership roles tend to feel a lot of pressure and responsibility, and when things go wrong, they internalise it and do the only thing they know to resolve the problem – either do the work themselves or micromanage (probably because the people we promote as leaders as those who were good at the job before). He also has a radical “cure”: Don’t try to teach leaders new skills, help them deal with their own insecurities instead, to help them become more effective.

The Hidden Costs of Employee Burnout

Tech can only do so much, and anyone who wants to scale has to become great at managing people because unhappy and unproductive employees really hurt your bottom line in the long run. And burnout might be a bit of a buzzword but, as this HR pro explains in this video, it’s not just about people working hard. It’s about the company not working smart, bad management and not recognising people’s efforts. Some suggestions are to 1) make wellness an important aspect of your business, 2) create a culture where people’s mental health is valued and 3) empower leaders to spot burnout and intervene before it becomes a problem.

Want to scale faster? We have people that are comfortable with the discomfort of the scale phase. Hit reply and let us know how we can augment your team.

Have your say…

What’s Happening at Specno

We Are Hiring!

Know someone who wants to kickstart their career in 2025?

Great, because we are gearing up for our next round of growth and looking for trailblazers who want to challenge the status quo, relentlessly pursue excellence and be part of something special.

We currently have positions for:

• Intermediate Product Manager

• Intermediate UX/UI Designer

• Intermediate Vue JS Developer

• Intermediate Angular–React Developer with AI experience

Get details and apply here.

Hit reply if you think we’ve hit or missed the mark, tell us what you’d like to see or hear more of and, just in general, what would really add value to your journey…

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