I Wasted 600 Days Chasing The Wrong Kind Of Growth. Here's What I Learned.

Why focusing on the wrong metrics nearly killed my business

Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels:

"You either make this next one work, or you're going back to look for a job"

January 2025 marked my 500th day as a solopreneur, and I had nothing to show for it except burnout.

Despite creating multiple apps, games, and content across various platforms, I hadn't earned a single dollar online.

My fatal flaw?

Believing that the "right" product would naturally attract customers, a delusion I call the "Build it and they will come" cult.

I had dreamed of achieving $1,000,000 in a year, right from the start of my full-time solopreneurship journey.

And I thought that it would be possible. Hard, but possible.

Reality Sets In

As time went by, I started to realize that it’s going to be harder than I thought.

There were many obstacles I wasn’t aware of that were in my way, like lack of knowledge, decision fatigue, Dunning-Kruger effect, crazy burnouts and more.

And now, looking back, I see that I had no chance.

And it wasn't because I wasn't working hard. On the contrary. I was working way too hard.

I was "busy" all the time. Focusing on the wrong things.

I thought that if I built a good solution to a problem, people would just come in droves and pay me to use it.

And for over 500 days, that's exactly what I did.

I built over a dozen product and went through over a dozen of cycles of burnout and depression.

I was too invested to stop, take a step back, and reassess my approach.

The Shift

At this stage, I was finally burned out from having one too many burnouts.

So I decided to give the next project 6 months before I call it dead and move on.

That shift changed everything.

From focusing on building a great solution and then marketing it, to talking to people, creating a solution, and iterating on it.

And this one tiny change made a world of difference, both to me, as well as to my users.

I had been like a chef cooking elaborate French gourmet meals, only to watch each plate come back to the kitchen untouched.

I didn’t need to cook better food.

I needed to understand what my diner’s eating preferences were first before cooking anything.

1. Everyone Wants Growth

The startup ecosystem has a growth obsession.

Like moths drawn to a flame, we're captivated by stories of hockey-stick trajectories and overnight successes.

This fixation isn't limited to any particular type of founder:

• Software developers dream of user counts doubling month over month (at least)

• Content creators refresh their follower counts hourly, chasing that dopamine hit

• Podcasters obsess over download metrics. They treat each new listener as validation

I was no different.

I kept trying different things to kick-start growth, thinking that increasing a free user base would get me there as I converted them to paying users.

But too often, founders get seduced into measuring the wrong things.

Growth metrics are like a ladder. They’ll take you somewhere higher than you are now.

But you have to make sure your ladder is leaning against the right wall.

2. But Growth Isn’t Always Good

Because not all growth is created equal.

There's a profound difference between what I now call "cotton candy growth" and "protein growth."

Cotton candy growth looks impressive.

It's large, colorful, and gets attention. The problem is that it dissolves quickly and leaves you with nothing but a sugar crash and empty calories.

It happens when you:

• Chase followers purely for vanity metrics

• Celebrate free-tier signups without follow-up conversion strategies

• Rack up impressive download numbers for apps people never open again

• Build an email list of freebie-seekers who never engage after the initial download

I've seen startups with millions in funding and hundreds of thousands of users collapse overnight because their growth was what I call “cotton candy”: fluffy and sweet, but insubstantial.

They were building on quicksand, not bedrock.

Meanwhile, founders focused on "protein growth," made up of fewer but higher-quality relationships with customers who stay, pay, and refer, are able to build sustainable businesses that withstand market fluctuations.

Always focus on substantial “protein growth.”

3. It’s Not All About the Numbers

The fatal error most founders make is believing that boosting raw customer acquisition numbers is their primary growth goal.

This leads them to make a series of interconnected mistakes:

1. Paid Search Addiction: Throwing money at Google and Facebook feels productive. You’ll definitely get a short-term metrics pop. But you quickly realize you're paying to acquire customers who won't stay or pay. You're simply renting attention, not building relationships. It's like trying to fill a bathtub without plugging the drain.

2. Buying Users: App install campaigns and paid newsletter subscribers might impress investors in the short term, but these relationships are transactional, not transformational. Users who sign up this way have no genuine connection to your solution. They're mercenaries, not missionaries.

3. Growth Hacks Over Value: When founders are tempted to prioritize clever acquisition hacks over improving their core offerings, they’re building a house of cards. Even if they do succeed in attracting a surge of curious visitors, those users will bounce rapidly. Because there just won’t be any compelling reason for them to stay once they get past that flashy hack.

4. Churning and Burning: The low-value users these tactics attract rarely become paying customers. They take your free tier, consume your resources, overload your support team, and disappear, often costing more than they'll ever contribute.

I wasted months cycling through these approaches, thinking each new tactic would be the breakthrough. What I didn't understand was that I wasn't failing at execution. I was just executing the wrong strategy entirely.

I was following what I thought was the right map.

But it wasn’t taking me in the direction I was trying to go.

Here’s the Strategy for the RIGHT Kind of Growth

The breakthrough came when I realized growth isn't a single-stage rocket—it's a multi-stage journey up what I now call "Metrics Mountain."

Using a metaphor created by Jeff Gothelf and Jeff Patton, I like to think of building your business like climbing a mountain.

Many founders obsess about getting as many people as possible to the trailhead at the base of the mountain (“Acquisition”). And then most startups abandon them without guides, proper equipment, or even a clear path forward.

And then they wonder why so few reach the summit.

Metrics Mountain - Mapping The Relationship Journey

Metrics Mountai “Reloaded.” Image by Michael Goitein based on work by Jeff Gothelf and Jeff Patton.

The journey up Metrics Mountain has seven distinct stages:

1. Acquisition (The Trailhead) - Where strangers discover your solution

2. Trial (Base Camp) - Where they test your offering with minimal commitment

3. Activation (First Ascent) - Where they experience their first meaningful value

4. Usage (The Climb) - Where they incorporate your solution into their routine

5. Retention (The Ridge) - Where they continue using your solution over time

6. Revenue (The Summit) - Where they become paying customers

7. Referral (Planting the Flag) - Where they bring others to start the climb

The way you entice your users from one basecamp to the next up the mountain is by making increasing promises to them and consistently over-delivering at each step along the way.

Investing in the Relationship

Laid out like this, it's impossible to view "growth" as a single, one-off event, like "getting people in the door."

This mental model makes it clear that you’re building an ongoing relationship that involves changing client behavior in ways that mean success for them, as well as for your business.

In other words, growth starts when you've made strategic choices that encourage clients to sign up for a free trial (Acquisition). But it only becomes meaningful when their experience using your product meets and exceeds their expectations ("Trial"), increasing the likelihood of turning them into a paying customer ("Activation"), through regular "Usage," and onward, up the mountain.

The crucial insight: fewer and fewer people will make it through each stage of the journey, and that's perfectly fine.

In fact, it's better this way.

It’s Not for Everyone

Because this is the biggest key to true growth: You never want "everybody" as your customer. You want the right customers for your product that you can best serve.

Remember that not everyone who reaches base camp belongs on the summit. Some people are just interested in “kicking the tires,” not in making the full ascent up the mountain.

Experienced mountaineers know it's better to climb with a small, committed group that’s done the work and is ready to climb than to drag reluctant tourists up dangerous slopes.

Doing What Doesn’t Scale

The path to sustainable growth isn't found in growth hacks or viral loops. it's built through genuine human connection:

• Commenting thoughtfully on their content, not with generic praise but with specific insights

• Engaging in DMs with curiosity rather than an immediate pitch

• Liking and sharing their work from a place of genuine appreciation

• Subscribing and recommending to demonstrate reciprocal value

• Taking time for 1:1 conversations where you listen more than you speak

This is where you learn the MOST about what your potential customers actually need, not what you think they need or what you want to build for them.

I discovered that 30 minutes on a Zoom call with a potential user taught me more than weeks of product development in isolation. These conversations became my compass and my map, helping me map the terrain and guiding every feature decision and marketing message.

These authentic conversations are like the Sherpas who guide climbers up Everest.

They know the terrain intimately and can navigate challenges that would be treacherous and insurmountable without their guidance.

Learn & build alongside your users

The traditional model of building in isolation and then marketing aggressively puts all the risk upfront.

Instead, involve potential customers in your building process:

1. Share early concepts and gather feedback before writing a single line of code

2. Build the smallest version that delivers value and get it in users' hands

3. Watch how they actually use it (not how you think they should use it)

4. Iterate based on observed client behavior, not just verbal or data feedback

5. Celebrate small wins together, creating emotional investment

This approach transforms customers from passive consumers into co-creators with a stake in your success. When someone has contributed ideas to your product, they're far more likely to become its champion.

Building in isolation is like writing and recording a comedy routine without ever telling the jokes in public.

You might create something impressive that you think is hysterical, but you'll never know if it’s going to resonate without a living, breathing audience’s feedback.

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5. Takeaways: Your Path Forward

After 600 days of struggling and nearly six months of applying these new principles, I finally created a product people were willing to pay for. The transformation wasn't as much the product itself as in how I approached building it.

Here's how you can avoid my mistakes and climb Metrics Mountain more efficiently:

1. Start with conversations, not code. Schedule five calls with potential customers before you build anything. Ask them to describe their problems in their own words, then use those exact phrases in your marketing.

2. Define success metrics for each stage of the mountain. Don't just track acquisition, create clear targets for trial completion, activation moments, usage frequency, retention periods, revenue goals, and referral rates.

3. Build the simplest solution that solves the core problem. My breakthrough product had fewer features than any of my previous attempts but it addressed the one specific pain point my users consistently mentioned.

4. Nurture relationships at scale. Create systems for meaningful engagement that don't require your constant presence, like community spaces, user milestone celebrations, and personalized onboarding sequences.

5. Embrace the narrowing funnel. Not everyone belongs at your mountain’s summit. Focus resources on those who give you clear signals they're willing and able to complete the climb, not on dragging reluctant users upward.

Remember: The "Build it and they will come" approach isn't just ineffective, it's your express ticket to founder burnout and business failure.

True growth isn’t about bringing in thousands of people, but starting off by carefully building a small community of people you know by name and creating relationships with them.

At the beginning, investing in 1:1 relationships that don’t scale will give you insights that can form the foundation of the right products.

The big realization for me was when I stopped seeing growth as my destination, and started seeing it as a relationship-building journey with my users.

Now, each step up Metrics Mountain is, above all, about deepening connections with my users and earning their trust. And only when I earn that trust am I able to advance my business.

Now, I'd love to hear from you:

Where on Metrics Mountain is your business currently focused?

And what's one small step you could take this week to build deeper relationships with your ideal customers?

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