Growth Newsletter #236

We’ve talked about unfair advantages before, which are more general:

• Money – Access to capital or financial resources.
• Intelligence & insight – Natural ability, education, or unique knowledge.
• Location & luck – Right place, right time, and fortunate circumstances.
• Education & expertise – Skills, training, and credibility.
• Status & connections – Social background, network, and influence.

A founder's job is to identify and exploit their unfair advantages.Here, we'll do the same with your company's Marketing Advantages (a framework developed by MKT1).Marketing advantages break down into four categories with three subcategories:

Of course, you can only learn so much from an icon and a few words, so let’s explain these a bit deeper.1. Product Advantages (Yellow)

• Product virality or network effects – Your product becomes more valuable as more people use it, making it easier to acquire new users organically (ex: Slack, WhatsApp).
• Free offering that converts well to paid – A freemium model or free trial that effectively transitions users to paid plans (ex: Figma, Notion).
  • Figma has a smart strategy where they let users invite others for free (to make it frictionless) and then sneakily add them onto the next month’s billing cycle.
• Obvious & major differentiator – A unique, highly visible feature that sets you apart from competitors (ex: Tesla’s full self-driving tech, and Superhuman’s speed focus).

2. Ecosystem Advantages (Pink)

• Partnership potential (affiliate, channel, influencers) – Strong opportunities for partnerships that drive adoption (ex: Shopify’s app store, HubSpot’s affiliate program, how AG1 seems to own every single podcaster/influencer).
• Integrations – Seamless connections with other platforms that make your product more useful (ex: Zapier’s gigantic integration library).
• Category or market tailwinds – Industry trends or regulatory shifts that naturally favor your business (ex: AI-driven tools benefiting from rapid AI adoption, or crypto companies benefitting from deregulation efforts).
  • It’s better to be WordPress in 2003 than a newspaper.

3. Marketing Fuel Advantages (Green)

• Standout company story or vision – A compelling brand narrative that resonates deeply (ex: Patagonia’s sustainability mission, SpaceX’s vision to colonize Mars).
• Demand for educational content – A topic where deep knowledge and content marketing drive engagement (ex: Ahrefs’ SEO content strategy, Demand Curve’s newsletter 👀).
• Customer love or proprietary data – A passionate user base or exclusive data insights that create defensibility (ex: Duolingo’s gamification loyalty, Spotify’s music recommendation algorithms).

4. Marketing Engine Advantages (Blue)

• Clear GTM Wedge & Ability to Expand – A well-defined initial entry point into the market with a clear path to scale (ex: Stripe started with devs before expanding into enterprise).
• Highest Organic Traffic in Category That Converts to Pipeline – A dominant SEO presence or word-of-mouth traffic driving leads (ex: HubSpot’s SEO dominance, or ).
• Audience Seeks Out Events or Community – A strong user base that actively engages with events and discussions (ex: Webflow’s design community, Notion’s ambassador network).

Okay cool but what do I do with this info?Here’s how to make use of Marketing Advantages:

1. Identify your advantages: Analyze your product, market, and brand to determine which marketing advantages apply to your startup.
   1. If you can’t find any, that might mean something.
2. Develop a strategy: Create a marketing plan to accelerate these advantages. For instance, if your product has network effects, implement referral programs and simplify onboarding (ex: Figma dumps you straight in).
3. Take action: Invest in areas that amplify your identified advantages, such as content creation for thought leadership or partnerships to build an ecosystem.
4. Monitor and evolve: Strike a balance between giving things time to work and being ready to pivot if it’s not working out.

The last you want to do is identify an advantage and then do nothing about it. Because if you don't, you better believe one of your competitors will.