How Ego Death and surviving off your Income Statement leads to scaling your product led B2B Business

To create a high-growth business we first need Customer Habit Loops to create data to inform an effective Go To Market strategy, build a data-driven Growth Model to serve this and lead you to the Holy Grail of the technology world, predictable revenue. How do Ego Death and surviving off your Income Statement lead you to high growth?

"Customer Habit Loops provide the foundational data set for your Go To Market strategy"

Customer Habit Loops are created when you solve a problem for a customer the way they want it solved. Customers come back to your solution repeatedly for the value you offer and these habits generate your foundational growth data set. This data set informs your Ideal Customer Profile and their habits show the value they seek which informs your Go To Market strategy.

If you have cash or runway you have the luxury of believing you are doing things the right way, you have the answers, you are the right team to solve the problem and your vision of the future is the right one. This is a strongly egocentric position which is not just healthy when you start, it’s essential.?

"Ego Death is the first step on the journey to Customer Empathy"

Product-led businesses go through the ‘wearing off of novelty’, the ‘trough of sorrow’ in the curve above and enter the ‘crash of ineptitude’ as the runway shortens and they have to survive off the Income Statement. The problems start when the Income Statement does not lift as planned because you are either not solving the problem the way customers want it solved or you have overestimated customers' willingness to pay. The only path leading out of the ‘crash of ineptitude’ is Customer Empathy, doing things the way the customer wants them done. This means shedding all the perceptions and assumptions you had of what the right solution looks like and what the future would look like when you launched. This requires Ego Death.?

"The only path leading out of the Crash of Ineptitude is Customer Empathy"

Ego Death is very specific to product lead businesses, if your business is sales or services-led you can still maintain a healthy ego which often wins competitive deals. When these businesses are asked why customers would choose them they respond with “our experience, our track record, our people, our culture, our values” - ‘our’ being the operative word, an ego-centric position. Product lead businesses have to respond with ‘When {these customers} experience {these problems} they seek solutions that offer {these benefits} and they value {these currencies}. Product-led businesses have to frame the value they bring from a customer-centric position otherwise customers will not choose their product.

"Ego survives as long as there is runway"

Ego survives as long there is runway, it erodes during the 'wearing off of novelty' and 'trough of sorrow' stages and dies in the ‘crash of ineptitude’. The ‘wiggles of false hope’ happen when you identify patterns in customers' behaviours you can serve. Scale and high growth, ‘the promised land’, happen when you serve these behaviours and create strong Customer Habit Loops.

"Eat the frog. The sooner you can survive off the Income Statement the faster you will scale"

Surviving off the Income Statement is an accelerant, it leads you to Ego Death and through the ‘crash of ineptitude’ faster. Whether you are funded or bootstrapped every startup runs out of runway, the sooner you ‘eat the frog’ the better.