At a recent event, someone in the audience asked me a great question: What do you consistently see startups and growing companies getting wrong—regardless of industry or stage?
After working with hundreds of businesses at 24GO, the answer came quickly. There are three patterns we see time and time again. They’re not complicated. But they’re persistent. And if you can avoid these traps, you’ll move faster, spend smarter and grow more predictably.
1. Too Much Perfection, Not Enough Action
Startups love to polish. The perfect website. The perfect pitch deck. The perfect product. The launch that never comes.
But the truth is, the market doesn’t reward perfection, it rewards momentum. Because you tend to lose the big picture when focusing on the little details. You don’t win by having the best-looking ad or the most elegant UI. You win by placing your product in front of your audience, then gathering feedback and making improvements.
The companies that grow fastest are the ones that test quickly and learn openly. They know that what you think the market wants is rarely what it actually wants. And the time you spend tweaking your landing page or over-thinking your content is time you could’ve used to collect real feedback and build demand.
Perfection is the enemy of progress. Just launch then fix it on the go.
2. Too Many Fees, Not Enough Media
Another trap we see too often: businesses spending 70% of their budget on consultants, advisers and agencies, i.e. focusing on conversations about growth instead of focusing on delivering it.
Let’s be clear, advice has its place. At 24GO, we offer strategic guidance because making the right decisions upfront saves time, money and missteps. But strategy alone isn’t enough. Your budget should reflect your goals, and if your goal is growth, most of your spend should go into the engine that fuels it: media.
Strategic consulting works best when it clears the path for execution, not when it consumes your resources. If you’re spending more than 50% of your marketing budget on fees instead of campaigns, you don’t have a scalable acquisition model but a think tank.
Don’t overpay for opinions. Invest in outcomes.
3. Too Much Acquisition, Not Enough Nurture
The obsession with “more leads” is understandable but dangerous. While chasing new prospects is tempting, focusing on the people in your existing network is the fastest way to grow. It’s also much more expensive to bring in new customers than to keep the ones you already have.
Most businesses already have a goldmine sitting in their CRM: unconverted leads, lapsed customers and satisfied buyers who could be your advocates if you just re-engaged them.
But nurturing takes patience. It’s not as sexy as scaling your ad spend or launching a new funnel. It’s slow-burn work involving automated emails, retargeting flows and educational content but it’s something that builds trust over time. And often the highest ROI activity you can do.
Don’t chase what’s next at the expense of what’s now. Focus on nurturing the leads you’ve already invested in.
Partner with 24GO
24GO helps startups and scaling businesses build the technical layer behind growth. That means strategy and also implementation. Our approach balances vision with velocity, fees with media, and new leads with existing ones.
Many startups run into familiar roadblocks as they grow. Overcoming them starts with recognising the issues, staying agile, spending wisely and valuing every customer touchpoint.
Want help putting that into action? That’s exactly what we do.
