Why I’m Launching a Growth Agency for Startups
And Why Full-Funnel Thinking Can’t Be Outsourced Later
Back in 2018, when I started on my first venture, Leaf Era, we were doing a lot of things manually.We didn’t have a tech stack for marketing. And obviously no AI tools. In the hindsight, I can realise, without the automation systems in place, we were losing a lot of time and energy to manual processes.
Once the COVID-19 pandemic hit, we couldn’t recuperate the business.We were scrappy, passionate, and figuring things out as we went. But looking back now, I can clearly see the cracks.
Without proper systems in place, we lost time, energy, and momentum to things that could’ve been automated.
Marketing was happening in silos. Customer data lived in spreadsheets. We didn’t have a funnel. We had over guesswork. The lack of foundation made it nearly impossible to recover from the losses we sustained in 2020.
That experience stayed with me. It made me realise something most early-stage founders only see in hindsight:
It’s not just about what you build. It’s about how ready you are to grow it.
And that’s exactly why I’m building Growth Motions, a growth agency designed for startups that want to set up their growth engine from Day 0.
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Why Startups Fail (And It’s Not What You Think)
We don’t talk about this enough, but 90% of startups fail.
According to CB Insights, over 56% of those failures happen due to reasons tied directly to go-to-market (GTM) failure.
- 42% of startups fail due to no market need
- 17% fail due to poor marketing
- 6% fail due to poor product launches
All of these outweigh things like poor tech, hiring mistakes, or running out of money. The truth is, most startups build first and figure out growth later and that delay is what burns their runway.
Growth Isn’t a Department. It’s an Operating System.
What most early teams miss is that growth doesn’t begin when you hire your first performance marketer or when you start running ads.
It begins with the systems you set in place while you're still building.
Here’s what I’ve seen again and again:
- Founders build an MVP, but skip setting up a CRM or email flow
- Product launches without analytics, attribution, or retargeting setup
- Six months in, they’re spending more time fixing their stack than growing their user base
The mindset I’ve carried into Growth Motions is simple but powerful:
If your tech and marketing stack is weak, growth becomes reactive.
If it’s strong, growth becomes a habit
The Cost of Delaying Your GTM Stack
According to HubSpot’s State of Marketing Report, companies that delay setting up core GTM systems (CRM, lead scoring, automation) spend 40–60% more on customer acquisition by their second year compared to those that build early.
Salesforce data supports this too, i.e, startups that skip early CRM adoption experience:
- 32% drop in lead conversion rates
- Major handoff issues between marketing and sales
- Higher churn due to poor onboarding flows
Segment's Startup Stack Benchmark Report adds another layer:
Startups that delay stack setup take 3x longer to integrate analytics, attribution, and automation later, often requiring complete re-engineering of product flows.
What Early vs. Late Stack Setup Actually Looks Like
✅ Early Stack Setup (MVP Stage)
- Month 1: CRM + lead capture forms in place
- Month 2: Email welcome flow + newsletter setup
- Month 3: Analytics & event tracking live
- Month 4–6: CAC starts improving, funnel starts working
➡️ You're not just building product. You’re building momentum.
⚠️ Delayed Stack Setup (Post-Series A)
- Month 1–3: Leads collected manually or not at all
- Month 4: CRM setup begins
- Month 5: Retrofitting analytics into the product
- Month 6: Realize you’ve lost 6 months of data and learning
➡️ More tools, more costs, more chaos.
Startups that build their growth stack early grow cheaper, faster, and smarter.
So Why Am I Starting Growth Motions?
Because after working with startups for nearly 10 years, I saw the pattern too many times.
Founders build something amazing, but forget to build the growth engine alongside it.
They launch. It doesn’t take off. Then they scramble. And in that scramble, they either burn out or give up.
Growth Motions exists to step in before the scramble.
To help founders build growth systems that last.
To set up lightweight, scalable stacks that plug into your product from Day 0.
And to ensure your go-to-market is not a last-minute panic but a calm, confident process.
If you’re in the early stages of building something meaningful,
Let’s build the motion that gets it to the world.
Bibliography
CB Insights. (2021). The Top 12 Reasons Startups Fail. Retrieved from https://www.cbinsights.com/research/startup-failure-reasons-top
HubSpot. (2023). State of Marketing Report 2023. Retrieved from https://www.hubspot.com/state-of-marketing
Salesforce. (2025). Small & Medium Business Trends Report, 6th Edition. Retrieved from https://www.salesforce.com/resources/research-reports/smb-trends
Segment. (2023). Startup Stack Benchmark. Retrieved from https://segment.com/industry/startups