How to unblock your startup growth: A founder’s guide to fix bottlenecks

Every founder’s journey is filled with ups and downs, but one of the most frustrating moments is when your startup feels stuck in a limbo of inconsistent growth.

It’s the stage where your customer base is expanding, but not at a rate fast enough to create stability. You’re not sinking, but you’re not quite swimming either.

Many founders have been there. The excitement of attracting those first customers fades when you realise that growth isn’t the tidal wave you expected.

Instead, it feels like you’re pushing water up a hill, slowly gaining a few more users, but never fast enough to scale comfortably.

So what’s going wrong, and how can you fix it?

The fear of not growing

One thing that stands out is the feeling of being overwhelmed by growth. It’s easy to get discouraged when the numbers aren’t moving the way you want them to.

But founders are problem solvers by nature. If you approach growth as a series of problems to solve rather than an insurmountable mountain, the path forward becomes clearer.

The mistake many founders make is thinking that growth will come naturally once they’ve built a great product. That’s rarely the case. Growth needs to be cultivated through a constant process of iteration, testing, and refinement.

The trap of growth by accident

There’s a common myth that all successful startups experience hockey-stick growth—suddenly, everything just clicks, and the product takes off.

This myth is dangerous because it assumes that growth is something that happens to you, rather than something you actively pursue.

In reality, most successful companies experience slow, deliberate growth, with plenty of stumbles along the way.

When Dropbox launched, it didn’t grow because of sheer luck. It grew because the team worked tirelessly on making the product easy to understand and easy to share. Growth was a result of methodical testing, refining, and scaling.

That’s how you should think about your startup’s growth. Don’t wait for growth to happen by accident. Seek it out. Build the systems that support it, fix the bottlenecks. But what does that mean?

Your growth problem is a bottleneck problem

Your startup is a series of connected segments. Each segment represents a key function e.g. traffic generation, lead conversion, product demos, and customer retention.

At each point, there’s potential for a bottleneck—a place where growth gets constricted.

Growth issues are often bottleneck issues. The trick is finding where the bottleneck exists, retooling that part of the system, and moving forward.

When growth slows down, there’s usually one or more areas where something isn’t operating at scale.

How do you spot the bottlenecks?

Finding your bottlenecks isn't a quick-fix process, but here's a few steps to help make the process a little easier.

Map out the buyer’s journey

The first step is to look at the buyer’s journey. Where is your growth pipeline getting clogged?

• 1. Traffic generation: Are people finding your business? You could have the best product in the world, but if no one knows about it, your sales funnel will be empty. This often happens when founders rely too heavily on one channel, like social media ads or SEO, without diversifying. When traffic dries up, leads disappear, and sales start to stagnate.

• 2. Lead conversion: Maybe you’re getting visitors, but they aren’t converting into leads. This can happen for several reasons—your messaging isn’t clear, the value proposition is off, or the call to action is weak. Maybe your landing page promises one thing, but the product delivers something slightly different. If people aren’t becoming leads, something’s broken in the early stages of the funnel.

• 3. Product demos or sales calls: If you’re, for instance, a SaaS company, you might be offering demos to showcase your product’s capabilities. But are those demos converting into paying customers? This can be tricky. Sometimes the demo itself isn’t engaging, or the sales call feels scripted and doesn’t address the customer’s actual pain points. Other times, there’s friction in the onboarding process that causes potential customers to drop off before they commit.

• 4. Customer Retention: Maybe your growth is being hindered by churn. You’re acquiring new customers, but losing them just as fast. Customer retention is one of the most overlooked aspects of growth, but it’s often the difference between scaling a business and barely staying afloat. Do you have a solid onboarding process that ensures customers understand how to use the product? Do you keep them engaged with consistent updates, support, or value-adds?

Focus, measure, and experiment

Once you identify the bottleneck, it’s time to laser-focus on that specific area.

You don’t want to spread yourself too thin by trying to fix everything at once. Instead, focus on the segment of the pipeline that’s causing the biggest bottleneck, and take a scientific approach: Measure. Research. Experiment. Measure again.

Let’s break that down:

• 1. Measure: Start by collecting data on the problem area. If your traffic is low, track website visits, time on page, and bounce rates. If conversion is the issue, measure how many visitors become leads and how many leads become customers. Data gives you a clear picture of where you stand and helps you establish a baseline before making changes.

• 2. Research: Look at what others have done to solve similar problems. Read case studies, talk to other founders, and dive into industry reports. Chances are, your problem isn’t unique, and there’s a proven solution out there you can adapt.

• 3. Experiment: Once you have a hypothesis about the problem, test different solutions. If traffic is low, experiment with new marketing channels—maybe it’s time to try influencer marketing or content collaborations. If conversion is low, A/B test different messaging or redesign your landing page to better align with customer needs. If demos aren’t converting, rethink the structure of your demo or sales call. Make sure you’re solving real pain points, not just delivering a product pitch.

• 4. Measure again: After making changes, go back to the data. Did your experiment work? Did traffic increase? Are more visitors converting to leads? If yes, great—move on to the next bottleneck. If not, it’s back to the drawing board. Growth is iterative, and sometimes you’ll need to try several experiments before you hit on the right solution.

The endless cycle of growth is endlessly changing

The work of fixing bottlenecks is never done. As your business grows, new bottlenecks will emerge.

The system that worked when you had 1,000 customers may start to break down when you hit 10,000. But that’s okay. Growth is an ongoing process of identifying friction points, solving them, and moving forward.

As a founder, your job is to constantly assess the state of your pipeline, identify bottlenecks, and fix them. It’s not glamorous, but it’s the reality of building a business.

The faster you embrace that process, the faster you’ll be able to navigate the ups and downs of startup growth.

Final thoughts

When you find yourself stuck in a cycle of inconsistent growth, don’t panic. You’re not alone.

The key is to identify where the growth pipeline is clogged, focus on fixing that bottleneck, and then move on to the next one. Measure everything, experiment frequently, and remember that growth is something you create through deliberate, focused action.

Success doesn’t happen overnight, but with enough persistence and iteration, you’ll start to see the steady growth you’ve been working toward.