eGrow was a B2B SaaS platform built to help e-commerce brands automate their supplier relationships. The product worked. The market existed. But the company had no systematic way to find, convert, or retain customers — and was burning capital on a fractured mix of cold emails, sporadic Google ads, and word of mouth that wasn't scaling.
I was brought in as Growth Lead with a clear brief: build the acquisition and activation engine from the ground up and reach $10K MRR within 90 days. No retainer. Results-based. If the numbers didn't move, I didn't get paid.
They were selling to everyone — Shopify stores, Amazon sellers, dropshippers. No prioritization, no messaging specificity. The top of funnel was generating noise, not signal.
New users took 14 days to hit their first meaningful activation event. Churn was happening before users understood the product. Acquisition spend was evaporating within the onboarding window.
Cold outreach was ad hoc — no targeting criteria, no sequence, no follow-up logic. The CRM had hundreds of unqualified leads with no attribution to revenue.
The diagnostic phase took 10 days. I audited the Google Ads account (small budget, broad match everything, no negative keywords), interviewed 6 current customers to identify the actual pain pattern, and mapped the entire onboarding flow to find where users dropped off.
The finding: 87% of churned users never completed the supplier integration step. Not because the feature was broken — but because the onboarding flow didn't lead them to it fast enough. The product was failing silently.
The second finding: the highest-LTV customers were all in one segment — Shopify brands doing $300K–$2M annual revenue, importing from Asia. This became the ICP. Everything else was deprioritized.
Defined the ICP precisely: Shopify merchants, $300K–$2M revenue, importing from Asia, 3+ SKUs. Built a messaging matrix with 4 pain-led angles. Rewrote all landing page copy around the supplier relationship problem — not software features.
Audited every onboarding step. Removed 7 friction points before the supplier integration. Added a mandatory "Quick Win" flow — users were guided to import their first supplier contact within 45 minutes of signup. Activation events moved from day 14 to day 3.
Built a 3-step cold email sequence targeting e-commerce operators via Apollo.io. 400 contacts per week, personalized first line based on Shopify store data. Sequence: problem-led intro → case proof → soft CTA to demo. Average reply rate: 8.4%.
Rebuilt the Google Ads account from scratch. Exact + phrase match only, 140 negative keywords added day one. Targeted bottom-of-funnel searches: "supplier management software," "Shopify supplier automation," "import management tool." LinkedIn retargeted site visitors and demo requesters with social proof ads.
Cold outbound delivered 38% of new MRR. Google Search 31%. LinkedIn retargeting 18%. Organic/referral 13%. The outbound engine was the highest-velocity channel for the first 60 days.
Built from zero in 90 days. Revenue was predictable by day 60 with a clear attribution model showing exact CAC per channel.
Onboarding redesign reduced activation time by 78%. Churn in the first 30 days dropped by more than half within 6 weeks of launch.
Industry average is 2–3%. The ICP precision and pain-led messaging drove 4× the typical response. 34 demos booked from outbound alone.
Target was 3×. By focusing exclusively on the highest-LTV ICP segment, blended CAC stayed low while ARPU climbed to $340/month.
Google Ads account restructure eliminated broad match waste. CPC dropped 38% while conversion rate on demo requests increased 2.4×.
Cohort retention improved from 67% to 91% in month 3 after the onboarding fix. The activation event was the leading indicator.
The biggest lever wasn't ads. It was onboarding. The best acquisition in the world can't fix a product that loses people before they understand its value. This is the most common SaaS growth trap — pouring capital into the top of funnel while the bottom leaks.
The second lesson: ICP specificity multiplies every channel. When we stopped trying to reach everyone and focused exclusively on Shopify importers, every metric improved — email reply rates, demo-to-close rates, retention, and word-of-mouth referrals.
Third: Google Search intent capture is the highest-quality acquisition channel for B2B SaaS when built correctly. People searching for "supplier management software" have a defined problem and buying intent. The mistake is running it poorly — broad match, weak negatives, no landing page alignment.
Every dollar spent acquiring users who churn before activating is permanently destroyed. The highest-ROI work in weeks 1–3 was onboarding, not ads. Scaling started in week 4 only after the activation rate hit target.
Days 1–14: Audit + ICP definition. Days 15–21: Onboarding fix. Days 22–45: Outbound engine launch. Days 46–90: Paid acquisition scale. This sequence matters — order of operations determines outcome.
90-day sprint. Results-based engagement. If MRR doesn't move, I restructure for free until it does.
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