Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

“We believe due diligence is rolling up our sleeves and helping you,” Andrew Goldner, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Growth^X, said at the beginning of a 90-minute presentation to a roomful of mostly entrepreneurs and supporters over lunch on Tuesday.

The title of the Nashville resident’s presentation was “Stop Chasing Leads and Start Closing Deals.” You could tell that Goldner felt very passionate about the topic since he spoke extemporaneously for the entire time without any notes.

We first met him soon after Goldner moved his family from Silicon Valley to Music City about nine years ago.

“Ninety percent of (business) failures occur because of a lack of product-market fit,” he told the attendees that included a number of current or alumni members of the “Innovation Crossroads” program operated by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. They included Md “Arif” Arifuzzaman of Re-Du Plastics, Katy Bradford and Jonathan Valz of Cassette Construction, Brian Iezzi of Fibarcode, Dan Lee of Perseus Materials, Forrest Shriver of Sentinel Devices, Alex Stiles of Vitriform3D and Fourth and Glass Recycling Company, and Philip Stuckey of FC Renew LLC.

Noting that all customers are not created equally, Goldner divided the group into three categories:

1. or Ms. Right;
2. or Ms. Wrong; and
3. or Ms. Right Now.

He said the focus should be on those that that are ready to buy a product or service right now.

“A long ‘no’ is the leading cause of start-up failure,” Goldner explained, adding that a good tip-off as to whether a customer is prepared to make a purchase soon would be asking for case studies. In that case, he described them as a Mr. or Ms. Right Later.

Among the other tips he offered were these.

1. “When your customer starts talking, you are learning. When you are talking, you are not learning.”
2. “If you are wasting my time, you are wasting my money.”
3. Finally, talk in the language customers understand, including the acronyms used in the industry sector.

Today, Growth^X is laser-focused on what Goldner describes as “Rising City Founders.” They can be located anywhere, but the I-65 corridor is a particularly fertile area in places like Birmingham, Louisville, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, and Knoxville. He describes these founders as “bottom-up business builders . . . bootstrappers.” He says they have small business values and rigor coupled with big tech ambitions.

---