​​Growth Course: Introduction

​​Welcome to the Bell Curve growth course!

​​We lead growth sessions at Y Combinator. We’ve taken clients from no revenue to millions in ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue). We’ve turned businesses around and gotten them to their next round of funding.
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​​This course is geared towards giving you our actionable strategies and tactics to apply to your business immediately.

​​Course Overview

​​As you go through the course, you’ll be testing different growth channels for your business. Everything from running Facebook ads, to implementing a referral program, to sending out cold emails to potential customers.
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​​It’s extremely important that you complete the first part of the course first. Otherwise, you’re going to waste many days going down the wrong path.
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​​Here’s how it’s going to work.

​​Part 1: Growth Strategy & Onboarding

​​Before we try to get more people to your site, we have to set up the foundation. This means making sure your site converts well — and being intelligent about what we try first.
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​​Sure, you could run Facebook ads. Or you could sponsor an email newsletter. Or you could auto-follow people on Twitter. There are a lot of shiny objects.
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​​How do you know what’s most likely to work?
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​​We’ll pull from our experience testing 20+ channels. Running over 10,000 ads. And writing punchy copy like this. 
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​​You’ll combine that knowledge with the specifics of your business to end up with a prioritized to-do list of what to start with.
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​​If you’re in our premium plan, we end this section with a live call with a Bell Curve team member. We’ll vet your initial growth strategy, develop it more, clarify assumptions, and dive into more details than you would go into on your own.
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​​Then, we make sure your onboarding experience is ironclad. This means you fix up your website so that people actually purchase once they get to it. 
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​​Otherwise, you’re going to waste money on people who show up and immediately leave. 
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​​Part 2: Ad Copy and Creation

​​We’ll walk you through how to write copy (the text in ads), and make creatives (the actual ad image and video you see) — using the practices that we know to work best across different channels.
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​​Part 3: Acquisition Channels and Conversion

​​We’ll give you a menu of the major channels that are most likely to work for your business. You’ll choose which to work on first based on your own own priorities.
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​​Each channel has its own module, which covers:
  • ​​Readings
  • ​​Checklists
  • ​​Templates
  • ​​Example documents based on real client work
  • ​​Short exercises
  • ​​A final project
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​​We’ll then use the ads you made in part 2 to upload them to places like Facebook and Instagram.

​​How to take this course

​​The project is the most important part of each module. It walks you through how we would run this channel for our own clients. Step-by-step. In full. Nothing is left out, and it’s these small details that make the difference.
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​​Often, course projects are a waste of time. Not ours.
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​​You must go through the first two weeks in order. If you blow through the readings and projects without taking them seriously, you will suffer great pain and money-losings.
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