6 Ways to go from Growth to Hypergrowth: A Conversation with Guillaume “G” Cabane

Growth gets you on the map… hypergrowth lets you dominate it.

Steffen Hedebrandt recently sat down with growth marketing expert Guillaume “G” Cabane, to shed some light on the tactics that have helped him move from growth to hypergrowth.

G explains that hypergrowth is not just about rapidly expanding but about sustaining growth - efficiently - over time, so that the CAC on your activities comes down as you scale.

But this panacea doesn’t come about through conventional efforts. It requires an unconventional approach which G packages into 6 key components:

• Continuous Experimentation

• Embracing Marketing Technology

• Focusing on the Customer Experience

• Using Pricing as a Growth lever

• Exploiting Untapped Channels

• Learning from Failures and Successes—Yours and Others

In this post, we’re unpacking each of these components for going hypergrowth 🚀

You can check out the entire conversation here! → 

What is hypergrowth?

Before we jump into how to achieve hypergrowth, let's take a moment to unpack this buzzword.

Definition: Hypergrowth is creating acquisition strategies that allow for scaling with diminishing customer acquisition costs.

Hypergrowth is not finding a growth channel and dumping tons of resources into it until it’s exhausted. Hypergrowth is about continuously pushing and testing (new) growth levers that produce increasingly efficient effects.

G puts it like this:

“Hypergrowth is about creating scaling effects, scaling economies. So that as you go beyond that series A quickly, as you go beyond those first couple million revenue, your CAC per customer goes down. And so you can create this momentum where every new customer is cheaper, while your ACV is stable or goes up and your margins improve.”

1. Continuous Experimentation

Key Takeaway: High-velocity experimentation increases your chances of finding those channels and tactics that significantly move the needle. 

Hypergrowth isn’t about getting it right once; it's about constantly prospecting and trying new things across the entire marketing funnel. 

Unlike product and marketing, which are more about executing well-understood plans, growth is more experimental and accepts a higher rate of failure in search of successful strategies.

Your experiments are your growth strategies. “Growth is about being able to place a lot of bets... if you run 50 experiments across your funnel, something's going to work.”

When you maintain a high velocity of experiments, something is sure to succeed. The idea is to fail fast, learn faster, and identify those few strategies that significantly move the needle. This requires an innovative mindset, where failure is accepted and seen as a stepping stone towards discovering your next big growth step. (more on learning from failures in point 6 below)

Leadership buy-in essential for fail-fast-learn-fast approach

Leadership buy-in is crucial for fostering a culture that supports growth experimentation.

G stressed how acceptance and encouragement of a high-rate of failure, inherent in growth experimentation, must start at the top. Leaders need to understand the value of placing many small bets to discover successful strategies, and recognize that not every initiative will yield positive results. And they must create that safe space for this to happen.

This approach contrasts with traditional expectations of success, typical of product development and marketing campaigns.

For more info on the value of experimentation, check out this session with growth hacker Jason Widup. 

2. Embrace Marketing Technology

Key takeaway: Keep your eye on emerging go-to-market tech which can hand you a competitive advantage.

Using technology strategically can be a huge factor in gaining a competitive advantage.

This requires early adoption and innovative application of emerging go-to-market technologies to help differentiate your business from competitors.

That’s because leveraging new tools and platforms enables B2Bs to enhance their growth strategies, improve efficiency through automation and insights, and offer unique customer experiences.

In his conversation with Steffen, G highlighted the importance of staying ahead of the technology curve, experimenting with new solutions, and integrating technical insights into marketing and product development to drive sustained growth and success in the insanely competitive B2B SaaS landscape.

G recalled implementing new technologies like Segment, Zapier and Dreamdata before they became mainstream, allowing for more efficient tracking and user acquisition at a lower cost.

3. Focus on the Customer Experience

Key takeaway: Don’t ignore the customer experience. Your growth strategy depends on getting your customers to your product smoothly - no matter the velocity.

When reaching for hypergrowth, it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that customers are the goal. So any and every experiment you’re running needs to deliver an exceptional experience to your customers. 

Whether it’s directing them to a self-serve platform or a personalized demo, the key is to make the experience seamless and valuable. Have a clear idea of what your customers really need and then guide them smoothly to your solutions.

Data is a key ally here. Customer journey data can help understand and anticipate customers’ needs to create tailored paths that guide them towards the most relevant solutions or products your company offers. 

Differentiate customers and tailor CTAs

G emphasises the importance of differentiating between high-value prospects and self-serve customers, directing them to the appropriate experience.

Free vs Demo CTA is a key example here. G tells us to stop letting customers decide.

You want your resources focused on your high-value prospects so you need to direct these towards sales engagement, while low-value customers are better served with less-resources-heavy exploring your services independently.

4. Pricing as a Growth Lever

Key Takeaway: Playing smart with your pricing isn't just about numbers—it's a powerful move to open new market opportunities and growth spots.

Pricing is not just about slapping a price tag on something; it’s a strategic tool that can open up new markets and customer segments. By playing around with your pricing strategy, you might just unlock a segment of the market that was previously out of reach.

This might mean experimenting with different pricing models or tiers that cater to different segments more effectively, thereby unlocking new growth potentials.

“Your CAC is a function of your margin and the price of your product, so here’s the question, can you increase the price of the product in such a way that it opens channels that you didn't have before?”

G suggests that growth strategies are inherently linked to how much a company can afford to spend on acquiring customers, which in turn, is influenced by the product's pricing and the resulting margins.

5. Use Untapped Channels

Key Takeaway: Diving into untapped channels offers the chance to stand out, save on costs, and innovate by finding less crowded spaces for customer acquisition.

Of course, we shouldn’t ignore the old reliables of paid, outbound and SEO, but what about the roads less traveled - even within these channels?

It’s important to explore and experiment with less saturated channels. We’re talking sophisticated ABM, or looking for emerging platforms where your competitors haven’t set foot yet. G encourages us to always be on the lookout for these channels.

Untapped channels are also often more cost-effective growth opportunities. Since these channels are not saturated with competitors, the cost of acquiring customers can be significantly lower.

But even within more conventional channels there are plenty of opportunities. For instance, optimizing for niche high-intent keywords that your competitors are ignoring can bring in the right traffic - even if in tiny volume.

Speaking of untapped channels, you might like this post with Paddle CMO, Andrew Davies on memorable marketing —>

6. Learn from Failures and Successes—Yours and Others

Key Takeaway: Learning from successes and failures - both your own and others’ - allows you to avoid common mistakes, quickly adopt proven strategies, and know where to scale your efforts.

Last but definitely not least, is the power of learning. One of the most efficient ways to accelerate growth is to learn from both the successes and failures - and these are both your own and those of other companies.

By analyzing what has worked (or not), you can bypass many common pitfalls and adopt strategies that have a proven track record of success. 

This doesn’t mean copying what others are doing but rather learning from their experiences to inform your unique strategy.

G explains, “I'm trying to see what all the others are doing and where they have failed and where they have succeeded to replicate the learnings.”

Conclusion

So there you have it. Hypergrowth is not merely about scaling up rapidly. It’s about doing so in a way that continuously reduces customer acquisition costs while maintaining or increasing average contract value and margins.

Achieving this is marked by a series of deliberate choices: 

• embracing technical marketing 

• fostering a culture of continuous experimentation

• prioritizing the customer experience above all

• leveraging pricing as a strategic tool

• exploring untapped channels 

• learning from both successes and failures 

So, lace up those sneakers, we’ve got some growth to chase!

About the Speaker:

Guillaume "G" Cabane, the Co-Founder of HyperGrowth Partners, has over 20 years of experience bridging marketing and technology. Starting in IT security, he quickly understood the power of technical insight in marketing contexts. As an entrepreneur, he led engineering and product teams, honing his knack for integrating technical solutions with marketing strategies. His pioneering work with technologies like Segment marked him as a thought leader, adept at using engineering talent to fuel growth. G's influence in growth marketing extends beyond his achievements; his dedication to mentorship and innovation continues to inspire marketers towards creative and tech-driven growth strategies.