Growth. It’s the dream of each chief executive; whether you are building a global corporation or running a startup, it is the elixir of life for your ambition and your balance sheet. But is it possible to create massive growth without burning out and without your values taking a hit? Can growth hacks create that kind of growth and maintain your sanity? And the last but far from the least important one: if you are flying solo as an entrepreneur, how do you keep your eye on the big picture and on the details that matter?
To uncover the secrets of some of the most successful CEOs, I went straight to the source and examined their journeys. I turned to Diary of a CEO, Steven Bartlett’s podcast, along with his 100 CEOs newsletter, where the world’s top business leaders share their best growth hacks. So, hear it from someone who consumed hundreds of hours of content on this topic: these CEOs don’t just hand out growth hacks —they open up about their failures, their setbacks, and the real-life, everyday strategies they used to achieve scale. From these stories, I pulled out my favorite insights on the kind of growth that lasts. Here’s what I learned.
Key Growth Hacks Every CEO Can Apply
So, what can you take away from these success stories? Here are five key growth hacks that any CEO can apply to their own journey:
- The Power of Organic Growth: Focus on building a content ecosystem that drives ongoing engagement.
- Focus on What You Do Best: Whether it’s content creation, decision-making, or leadership, focus on areas where you add the most value and delegate the rest.
- Hire and Trust a Great Team: Your most valuable asset is the right team. Empower them, trust them, and give them the autonomy to drive the company forward.
- Reinvest for Bigger Gains: Profit should constantly be reinvested into growth initiatives, including paid engagement. But remember: scaling should be sustainable.
- Improve, Don’t Stagnate: Be unafraid to fail. Working through problems by experimenting and iterating is key to uncovering what works and recalibrating when necessary.
Now, let’s get to the juicy part.
The Power of Organic Growth: Mr. Beast
Why use Mr. Beast as an example in the first place, you may ask? After listening to Steven Bartlett’s podcast, I understand Mr. Beast’s strategy for success much better, where I learned this: Mr. Beast’s story isn’t one of luck or going viral. It’s a web of systems—strategic investments, audience engagement, and decision-making that is thought out in incredible detail.
His genius is in how content is designed to play into itself, to feed into itself, and to cultivate an audience that, with deep loyalty, shares and amplifies each new piece.
What is the main idea for any chief executive to understand? It makes no difference if your company is in technology, e-commerce, or a service industry—its content strategy should be seen as part of a much bigger ecosystem and one that generates continuous engagement. But Mr. Beast could have very well used paid social media promotion in a way that was so clever, you wouldn’t have been able to tell it was happening. And that’s because, when done right, paid promotion is invisible.
Paid Promotion
Yes, paid promotion can certainly help stoke the fires of growth, but it should complement (not a crutch) your organic content efforts and integrate seamlessly into a much larger ecosystem.
This is why it’s worth discovering social media paid promotion services like PopularityBazaar. You can achieve organic growth faster and more effectively by strategically using tools that amplify your presence on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, or Facebook. It’s like upgrading to a premium subscription—you still control the content, but now you have access to all the enhanced features that accelerate your growth hacks.
Think about it: if you had a massive product launch or a viral video in the works, wouldn’t you want to give it that extra push to ensure it hits the right audience? You don’t need millions to do this; you just need the right strategy. And with the right tools, you can get that boost without ever appearing like you’re just buying views or likes. You’re amplifying your organic reach. Which, for any business nowadays, equals conversions and growth.
Focus on What You Do Best: Emma Grede, Co-founder of Good American and Founding Partner of SKIMS
Emma Grede is a master at focusing on what she does best—building strong, authentic brands. She co-founded Good American, a fashion brand that is all about size inclusivity, and played a pivotal role in SKIMS, the shapewear brand that redefined an entire market. Grede’s secret? Focusing on brand-building and consumer empathy, areas where she excels. She leaves other aspects—like operations and logistics—to experts in those fields.
Understand your strong points and focus on them. Delegate the rest to the specialists who can help you realize your vision and who can do what needs to be done far better than you can. In Grede’s case, what needed to be done was to develop a brand that speaks to real customer needs. But, be sure, not everybody gets that right. Because of her strong vision and leadership, her products were never just products; they became cultural artifacts, known globally.
Hire and Trust a Great Team: Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group
Scaling Virgin Group into a global identity was no grand secret for Richard Branson. In order to scale, it is essential to have a trusting and empowering environment for teams. The strategist and entrepreneur simply surrounded himself with the best in the field and allowed them to run their departments. Branson let his big decision-makers make those calls without micromanaging. He ran a hands-off operation, and under those circumstances, Virgin Group grew and took on a life of its own.
As a result, under Branson’s guidance, Virgin Group has grown from a tiny mail-order record company in 1970 to a huge corporation that spans many different businesses—airlines, cell phones, health care, and space travel, to name a few. The Virgin organization now numbers more than 40 companies around the world and has annual revenues of over 25 billion dollars and employs over 60,000 people across 35 countries.
The takeaway here is clear: your most valuable asset is your team. To have the right team, you must build a culture of trust. Your team must feel free to shine. Branson’s leadership approach can be summed up in these three sentences. The essence is to create a collaborative environment where talent is nurtured. That is the direct path to exponential growth.
Reinvest for Bigger Gains: Reed Hastings, Co-founder and Former CEO of Netflix
Reed Hastings locked this one in early: for Netflix to achieve global growth , reinvesting profits into the business was crucial. While many business leaders took a hands-off approach—accumulating cash and dividends while waiting for future opportunities—Hastings took a different path. He recognized that the market for video-on-demand wasn’t fully developed when Netflix launched, so reinvesting profits into expanding content was the only way to stay ahead.
Hastings committed to constantly reinvesting Netflix’s profits back into the company, specifically into new series and original content. This strategy paid off. By the end of 2013, Netflix had reached nearly 40 million U.S. subscribers, nearly half of its target customer base at the time. The shift toward original programming, such as the release of House of Cards in 2013, solidified Netflix’s position as the leader in the streaming space. Reinvesting in content allowed Netflix to stay ahead of competitors like Hulu and Amazon Prime, who were also vying for market share. Hastings’ strategy of using profits to fuel content creation not only set Netflix apart but also helped it grow into the global streaming giant it is today.
In order to expand your business and make it thrive, you must put the profits right back in the same area. This is true whether you are talking about the national economy or a single grassroots organization, and it is just as true for tech companies. Hastings’ decision to reinvest almost all of Netflix’s profits into content year after year really set the company apart and put it on a fast track to not just the content business but also content supremacy.
Improve, Don’t Stagnate: Jeff Cavaliere, Founder of Athlean-X
Jeff Cavaliere’s journey with Athlean-X is all about improvement and progress. As a former physical therapist and trainer, Cavaliere focused on content that delivered real value to his audience. But he didn’t just stop there—he constantly tested, tweaked, and enhanced his workout programs and videos. His focus on continuously improving and refining his offerings allowed him to adapt to new trends and stay ahead of competitors. Don’t be afraid to fail—experimentation and improvement are key to finding and scaling what works quickly. Cavaliere’s ability to respond to audience feedback and repeatedly refine his content has allowed Athlean-X to stay relevant and grow in a crowded fitness space.
Jeff Cavaliere’s Famous Mistakes and Lessons Learned
Here are some of the few mistakes that Jeff made early on, learned from them, and as a result, experienced the expansion of Athlean-X we see today.
Overcomplicating Programs for Viewers
Cavaliere started by making fitness programs that were too complicated for most people to follow. He came to understand that if he made them simpler and more universally applicable, he would also find them more successful and more people would trust him.
Ignoring Audience Feedback Initially
At first, Cavaliere was focused on his expertise, and he failed to truly hear what his audience needed. As the brand expanded, he became obsessed with the concept of feedback. The more he listened, the better he performed. In forming a better connection with his community, his content took a major shift for the better.
Not Embracing Collaboration Early Enough
In the beginning, Cavaliere attempted to manage every aspect of his business, including content creation and its marketing. Once he created a team and worked with others, Athlean-X began to see true and sustained growth.
Underestimating the Power of Consistency
In the beginning, Cavaliere posted anything he could think of, instead of maintaining a single theme. When he found the clarity to work consistently and with focus on fitness education, his brand’s engagement and recognition went off the charts.
Solo Scaling vs. Big Corporate Scaling: The Real Difference
Scaling a business looks very different depending on whether you’re doing it alone or running a huge company. When it comes to doing it solo, you don’t always have the luxury of a huge team. But if you want the business to survive and thrive, you must make it work somehow. And in the early days, there were three factors that every CEO must master: creativity, hustle, and audience engagement.
But at a certain point, scaling alone doesn’t work anymore. You need systems and the right kind of support to shift from a successful solo business to a massive company. I think Branson’s way of scaling The Virgin Group stands in contrast to many of the solo-hero stories I hear. He built Virgin by obsessing over logistics, building systems, and hiring the right kind of people. He started alone but eventually realised the power of having a great team.
Here’s the obvious takeaway: Putting the proper procedures and the right workforce in place is the final of the growth hacks. It is a thrilling ride to grow your business all by yourself, but when the thing truly starts to scale, placing the proper people and plans in the proper places will make this story end with a sustainable, long-term success rather than a beginner’s luck.
Wrapping It Up
All CEOs come to their position by different means, yet the growth hacks I mentioned above are universally applicable. CEO or not, if you’re an entrepreneur, you can bet these hacks will help you grow your company. Not because a famous person said so, but because they are sound business principles anyone can apply today.
Photo by Luke Chesser; Unsplash
