Startup world has changed. Here's the emerging playbook.
In the past 20 years, we’ve been accustomed to a startup playbook that is still taught by some accelerators and found in books. But the reality has changed: success and smart capital are now rewarding different traits and behaviors of founders and core startup teams.
Pancrazio Auteri
Oct 14, 2024
The conventional startup playbook goes like this:
Build a minimum viable product.
Launch with a big PR splash.
Push hard on cold outbound.
Write SEO-bait content for inbound leads.
Get to $1M in ARR to show product-market fit and raise your Series A.
Keep growing by hiring more reps, growth is a formula in a spreadsheet.
Have marketing find qualified leads (MQLs) to feed the army of sales reps.
Raise more money to generate PR, hire top candidates and prove viability to prospects.
We founded our first startup in 1996. It was a lot of fun: Internet and the World Wide Web were a big novelty for businesses and consumers and I was co-founding it with my friends from college.
Wired was a frontier magazine and we were part of a vibrant group of software entrepreneurs. In almost three decades, I literally witnessed the emergence of various versions of the startup playbook, including the most popular based on the Lean movement.
The new playbook for startups
Twelve years ago I moved from Europe to California. From this new ecosystem I witnessed a big shift in how the next-gen startups achieved success. This shift accelerated a few years ago, when interest rates went up again, after more than a decade of cheap money.
As in every complex system, beside cost of capital, there are other reasons why this emerging playbook is now becoming solid and actionable for founders. Here are the key points that touched me directly as a product leader or through investing in brilliant entrepreneurs.
1. Build a minimum "remarkable" product
The conventional MVP approach of "if you're not embarrassed, you're releasing too late" was developed when the status quo was based on manual work, legacy software or simply Excel-like tools. Even a basic improvement over the available alternatives could find a group of forgiving early adopters and, in time, paying customers.
Today, the MVP must have at least one *remarkable* feature. Something that stands out and sparks interest, word-of-mouth and ongoing usage. A product that is merely "viable" won't cut through the noise.
What is the remarkable thing of your product people will notice and talk about?
What new products did you try recently? What is the thing you remember about them?
2. Rethink the launch strategy with storytelling and personal touch
The "big bang" launch opening the waitlist all at once can backfire. The waitlist is usually full of curious people and competitors that will not truly adopt your new product. You're risking a big disappointment that undermines the team morale and your self-confidence.
Instead, onboard in batches and focus on telling your founder story. People connect with stories, not just brands. If you tell about your beliefs, how you know what they're going through and why you built the product to solve a struggle you know about, they'll feel that connection.
At this stage, you need to process every piece of feedback you can get from early users. If you open the gates, you and your team will not have time to iterate in this delicate and unique phase of tuning or pivoting.
Why: Staying closer to new customers helps you learn deeper and improve faster, while sharing your authentic journey creates a deeper connection with your audience, a foundation for loyalty and ambassadorship.
3. Channel testing over cold outreach
Cold outreach often yields low response rates and disappointment: people have become numb to unsolicited pitches. Next-gen startups rigorously test channels to find what works best, then scale. Options include organic social, paid social, automated outbound, AI SDRs, SEO, influencer campaigns, and more. Hire operations experts to test and grow the right channels.
Tip: Don’t rely on one approach that worked for someone else. Modern growth is about experimenting, learning, and doubling down on what works in your specific combination of differentiators and market needs.
4. The SEO world is too noisy. Lead with product uniqueness
SEO-bait content doesn’t work anymore. Search engines are overcrowded with experts on any given topic. Instead, create valuable experiences to draw people in. Test lead magnets, mind-blowing videos, interactive demos, or even a free product version. Let people try your product without any barriers; if they love it, they’ll sign up to save or share their work.
Example: Rows allowed users to dive right in, creating spreadsheets without even signing up. The product spoke for itself. Remember: we need customers who "get it" and receive value, we don't want a crowd of registered users that don't actually use the product.
5. Product-market fit is about early retention, not ARR milestones
Patience is a hard conquer for founders. We like leading indicators, and ARR is definitely a laggard one. One million dollars in ARR may be a rule-of-thumb for some investors, but it is not a hard sign of PMF. Strong retention and word-of-mouth are.
If your customers are getting repeatable value and telling others, you’re on the right path.
Track the ratio between daily and monthly active users as a leading indicator. Obsess over early retention rather than going crazy on lead generation—you can buy leads, but you can’t fake retention.
Even if you managed to sell a 1-year subscription, nurturing early retention is your priority. The alternative is having a ticking bomb. I've seen it explode right when we were starting a fundraising. Bad timing. Retention means PMF. Early retention is where you can act on.
Why: If people keep coming back, it means your product is solving a real problem for them. Dig deeper by interviewing the happiest customers and try to replicate their purchase journey. Study the modern Customer-led approach, read and apply the book Forget the Funnel.
6. Stay lean with automation and AI
Investors now look for higher ARR per employee. You can’t just add sales reps and account executives anymore—AI and automation are essential for scaling efficiently. Use automation to remove manual work so your team can focus on what matters most: solving customer problems and delighting them.
Example: Modern startups use AI to qualify leads faster, allowing sales teams to focus spend quality time on the highest value opportunities.
7. Unify the go-to-market strategy
I've seen this so many times, in small and big teams: splitting acquisition between marketing and sales leads to attribution fights and blame games. Smart founders and CROs don't rely on spray-and-pray demand generation. Instead, focus on the best accounts within your ideal customer profile.
Help prospects throughout their entire buying journey, without pushing. Adopt a demand-side mentality. Marketing, pre-sales, onboarding and customer success should be unified facets of the same strategy: helping customers solve their problems.
Tip: Think of your go-to-market as a team sport—everyone is responsible for customer success. Read and apply the book Demand-side Sales 101.
8. Capital Optionality
Modern startups are smarter with outside capital. In older times of low interest rates, big fundraising rounds meant big ads and powerful PR. Today, smart founders bootstrap or raise just enough to own specific market segments and build business sustainability. With a slight profitability and a solid valuation, they can later raise a big round and aim for the stars. Embracing capital optionality and maintaining a path back to profitability is the playbook for this decade.
Why: The more control you maintain, the more strategic flexibility you have as markets and opportunities change. Big rounds mean board seats, you want to delay that potential interference as much as you can. Smart founders choose their advisors.
Quick Recap
Startup world has shifted. Winners adapted to an updated playbook with these traits:
Build a minimum *remarkable* product that stands out.
Embrace storytelling to gradually attract an audience.
Hire RevOps to test and grow potential channels.
Lead with the product and create valuable experiences.
Strong retention and word-of-mouth indicate PMF.
Stay lean through automation and AI.
Embrace a unified GTM strategy focused on target customers.
Maintain capital optionality and control your destiny.
These are inspiring behaviors you can adapt to your context and create your own playbook to align and energize your entire team.
What story can you tell about your startup that will resonate with your audience?
Which of these emerging traits are you embracing already? Share your experience and findings with other founders.
If you’re intrigued by this shift in the startup playbook and want to explore how to adapt it to your journey, feel free to reach out.
Ad maiora!