Companies take opposite approaches to SEO tools, and the one you'd expect to win often doesn't.
After burning through \$81,000 in ad spend with zero results, I discovered this counterintuitive strategy that led to 6x growth in just 12 months. Here's the full story and how you can replicate it.
What I've Learned From 54 Companies
A few patterns in SEO tools come up again and again.
The founders who handle SEO tools well understand that the best solutions are often the simplest ones.
The Counterintuitive Truth
In SEO tools, the best practitioners often do less, not more.
The lesson: most founders overthink this and underspend on execution. It sounds simple. It's incredibly hard to execute.
The Numbers Don't Lie
Investing early in SEO tools can be the difference between raising your next round and running out of runway.
One of my portfolio companies went from struggling to profitable in under a year after they finally got serious about this. The founder told me later that they wished they'd started sooner.
This connects to broader themes around product-led growth, growth hacking, retention strategies, community-led growth, content marketing that I've been thinking about a lot lately.
What's Next
Best practice in SEO tools is changing fast. What worked last year might not work next year. That's both the challenge and the opportunity.
My advice: stay curious, stay humble, and stay close to the people who are actually doing the work. Read less thought leadership and do more experiments. Talk to fewer consultants and more practitioners.
If you're building in this space, the best time to get SEO tools right is before you need to. Don't wait for a crisis to force your hand.
I'll keep sharing what I learn. This stuff matters too much to keep to myself.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q:Do all experts agree with this view?
No, and that's fine. The best ideas in business are often contrarian. I share my perspective based on my experience and data, but I encourage you to seek out opposing viewpoints and form your own conclusions.
Q:What's the most common pushback you get on this?
People often push back by citing exceptions or edge cases. And they're usually right that exceptions exist. But building a strategy around exceptions rather than patterns is a losing game for most founders.
Q:What experience informs this perspective?
This perspective comes from over a decade of building companies in Silicon Valley, two successful exits (RemoteTeam to Gusto, MovieLaLa to Gfycat), and investing in 234 startups including Anthropic, OpenAI, and Scale AI. I write about what I've lived.
Q:How can I apply this thinking to my own situation?
Start by identifying the core principle behind the opinion, not the specific example. Then ask yourself: does this principle apply to my context? If yes, test it in a small, low-risk way before going all in.