Growth Newsletter #351

Narrow to grow, take-back pricing, change the axis.  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

October 21, 2026 GROWTH NEWSLETTER NO. 351 · OCT 21, 2026 The Growth Newsletter #351   Greetings humans, A quick introduction for all you new readers: We’re Demand Curve, a growth agency for startups. 43 unicorns later, almost everything in the Growth Newsletter comes out of the work we do for our clients. How we think, and how we execute. We give away most of what we know here. If you’re time-strapped or you’ve hit a wall, hire us and we’ll do it for you. Ok, here’s what we got for you today: how narrowing your market can actually grow it, how early-stage Rapha got traction by changing the axis it competed on, and why a take-back program lets you charge more. —Nick ░▒▓█▓▒░ ◆ ░▒▓█▓▒░ Advertisement Brought to you by Demi AI, the AI assistant that gets work done before it slips. Every AI waits for you to ask. Demi doesn't. It lives on your Mac, learns from your screen, notices what's slipping and gets it done the way you do. Here's what that looks like: Never lose a deal to silence. Demi spots the cold lead, researches them, and follows up your way. Never drop a promise from a call. Demi turns it into action items, then does them. Never build Monday's report again. Your Meta and Google numbers are ready before you ask. Demand Curve readers get early access + $100 free credits with code DMC100. Get your $100 credits for Demi AI here → Want to get in front of 105,000+ founders and marketers? Let's chat.   01Messaging Narrowing your market can actually grow it Insight from Devon Reynolds, Growth Strategist at Demand Curve.   Most startups are reluctant to narrow their positioning. They’re worried about turning away potential customers. So they write messaging that appeals to everyone. The problem is that, in most cases, broad messaging doesn’t give anyone a good reason to pay attention. Consider two headlines for a hypothetical AI product: Option A: “Use AI to grow your business.” Option B: “Turn more of your SaaS demo requests into paying customers.” The first could apply to millions of businesses. But it doesn’t tell any of them much about what the product actually does. The second speaks to a smaller group, but those people immediately understand what problem the product solves and why they might want it. That’s the difference between reaching a large audience and being relevant to one. A few ways to make your positioning more specific: Focus on a particular customer. Instead of “marketing software for businesses,” try “marketing software for independent accounting firms.” Focus on a particular problem. Instead of “improve your sales process,” try “stop losing qualified leads between the demo and the proposal.” Focus on a particular situation. Instead of “helping startups grow,” try “helping SaaS founders find their first repeatable acquisition channel.” Here’s an exercise we do with all of our Story Systems clients. Show your homepage headline to someone unfamiliar with your business, then ask them three questions: Who is this product for? What problem does it solve? Why would someone choose it over the alternatives? If they can’t answer all three clearly and quickly, your positioning needs work. And if you’re worried about narrowing your audience too much, remember that your positioning isn’t permanent. You can start with the customers most likely to buy, establish a foothold, and expand from there.   02Positioning Change the axis you’re competing on Insight from Nick Costelloe, Content Lead at Demand Curve.   One of my favorite things to do is study big, established companies. But I don’t care much about what they’re doing now. They’re already big, and most of them grow (or fail) despite what their marketing teams do. I care about what they did in their early days. The stuff that actually got them traction. So let’s talk about the cycling brand Rapha. Everyone’s dunking on them right now for nine straight years of losses. But they built a £200 million brand selling wool jerseys and... pain? And there’s an early positioning lesson in here worth learning. Look at the photo below: In 2004, every cycling brand was selling the same thing: speed. Lighter, faster, tighter. Neon kit covered in sponsor logos, the same kit your favorite pro raced the Tour in. Problem is, most riders will never be fast. (I ride bikes. I’m one of those riders.) You can buy the fastest-looking kit and still get dropped. Every new launch raised the bar and reminded you that you’d never clear it. And all of it was, in my humble opinion, ugly. Rapha’s founder saw that. So in July 2004, they launched with a photo exhibition in an old London brewery. It was called Kings of Pain. This was a new angle. Riders sweating, grimacing, so wrecked they look ready to quit. Black and gray, old school, nothing like the neon riders had been sold for decades. And it made suffering look good. The product was just as stubborn. In a sport that weighed everything in grams, Rapha’s first jersey was wool. It shouldn’t have worked. Instead, Rapha blew up into one of the defining cycling brands of the 21st century. What happened? They changed the axis they were competing on. Everyone else competed on speed. Rapha made it about devotion. Did you go out in the rain? Did you keep going when it got hard? They moved the competition to something their rider was already doing and getting no credit for. How fast did you ride? → How many times did you ride last week? Not every rider is fast, but every rider can choose to ride when it hurts. Sell speed and the jersey reminds most riders they’re slow. Sell devotion and it’s proof they showed up. And since no other brand was leaning into that, the angle was Rapha’s for the taking. Importantly, Rapha kept the traditional “hero.” They still revered the pros. They didn’t change WHO you aspired to be. They changed WHAT about the pro you were emulating. Positioning was one piece of it. Product design, pricing, direct distribution, and the clubhouses all reinforced each other, and the five fits still have to be dialed. The story is what tied them together. Whatever happens to Rapha next, it’s worth appreciating what they did early to get traction. So how do you use this? If your whole category is pointing at the same hero and claiming the same thing about them, find the part of that hero nobody’s claimed yet. Everyone selling fast? Sell devotion.   03Pricing Offer a “take-back program” and charge more Insight from Science Says, via the Journal of Marketing, written by Neal O’Grady.   You've just moved. So you've decided to get rid of your old Poäng chair from IKEA (yes, we both know you've had one at some point) and upgrade. You could sell it on Marketplace, but... people are so flaky it’ll take days, maybe weeks. And you’d feel bad if you just threw it out. Then you discover that IKEA has a sell-back program, so you can ditch the old one while you’re grabbing the new one anyway. Score. And they’ll fix it up and sell it again. It also makes you more likely to buy that new chair from IKEA. And it raises what you’ll pay for it by 12.2%. (Note: Apple also does this with Apple Trade-In. They either resell the device or recycle the materials to use in new devices. And they charge a lot of money.) This works with a simpler take-back program too, where the brand responsibly disposes of your old mattress or electronics instead of buying them back. Researchers found people were willing to pay: 39.1% more for a pen with a take-back program (versus a regular pen) 12.2% more for an IKEA circular program armchair (versus a regular armchair) 9.2% more for a backpack, but only when buying it for themselves, not others They also found: 65.3% of people chose the more expensive shirt ($11.90 vs. $10.15) when it came with a take-back program. Return programs increased brand loyalty by 19.4% for a clothing brand and 13.3% for IKEA. Takeaway: If you sell a physical product, consider offering a take-back or buy-back program. It can increase loyalty and the perceived value of your products. And with extended producer responsibility legislation gaining momentum, it’s smart to consider circularity early.   The back page Something fun Thanks for reading! If you’ve made it this far, I’d love to learn a bit more about you and what you’re working on. What’s your role? What’s your biggest growth problem or roadblock right now? Just hit reply and let me know. I’ll use your replies to decide what to write about in the next few newsletters. —Nick SUBSCRIBE - FREE Never miss an edition Join 105,000+ operators. Every Wednesday. Join The Frontier   The Directory How we can help Paid Marketing Campaigns live in about two weeks AI Search Get found when buyers ask AI ChatGPT Ads Win the newest paid channel first Story Systems The messaging system behind growth Ad Creative AI-native creative, senior-directed Landing Pages Conversion pages your ads deserve   How was today's issue? Loved itMehNo bueno Justin Setzer Nick Costelloe Joey Noble Devon Reynolds   Update your email preferences or unsubscribe here © 2026 Demand Curve 4460 Redwood Hwy, Ste 16-535 San Rafael, CA 94903, United States Powered by beehiiv

Meta has billions riding on its Muse

Meta has a lot riding on a little furry mascot.

(Smith Collection/Getty Images) Hey Snackers, Usually you want a taco that has some varying texture. A woman in Texas is suing a regional taco chain, Torchy’s Tacos, for $250,000 after nearly swallowing a cow tooth.  It’s not an uncommon thing to find in barbacoa, the kind of meat that filled her “Democrat” taco, which is slow cooked beef cheek. Still, the woman was “grossed out and sickened,” according to reports.  Stocks ended mixed on Tuesday. SPENDING SPREE Meta has a lot riding on a little furry mascot Meta — one of the largest and spendiest companies in the artificial intelligence trade — is slated to report earnings today after the bell. The report comes at a time when investors are increasingly worried about the amount of debt companies are taking on to fuel their AI ambitions.  Specifically, investors are worried that companies like Meta took on a dangerous amount of debt to create products that have not yet proven that they will generate enough revenue to pay that money back. Meta’s message to investors will likely be something along the lines of: “trust the process.”  Meta up until recently had little to show for its AI spend, and is expected to report $41.1 billion in capital expenditures for the quarter and $9.4 billion negative free cash flows, which would mark its first cash flow negative quarter since 2012. While we're on the topic, here’s what else the Street is expecting:  Revenue at $63.3 million, up 23% year over year.  Adjusted earnings per share at $6.79, down 6.3% year over year.  Meta unveiled Muse, its personal AI agent, on Sept 8, meaning we’ll get a peak at how the new product performed in the first few weeks. The app surpassed 5 million downloads in its first three weeks, according to Sensor Tower data cited by multiple outlets. Wall Street appeared hopeful, sending Meta rallying in the weeks after the launch.  Muse, which has a furry mascot that’s equal parts cute and unsettling, is one of the first big consumer AI products. You give it the keys to your email and credit cards and it can do things that are the bane of our existence, like make dinner reservations or order more Tide Pods.  That’s a bit of a different play than its peers, which have made big bets on AI as a tool for corporations eager to do more with less humans. The relationship between AI companies and corporations is starting to show cracks but its relationship with consumers over a subscription based service is still in its early innings.  It’s ultimately unclear if Muse will be the cashcow it needs to be in order to justify the amount Meta has spent on AI. The economics of a subscription product is also very different to Meta’s lucrative advertising business. And, as my colleague Walter Hickey pointed out earlier, it takes AI competitors like Amazon being willing to play ball in order for this thing to work as advertised.  THE TAKEAWAY As we wade into a big week for tech earnings, the questions on everybody’s mind is as follows: How much more money are you going to spend and or borrow?  When is the thing you’re working on going to make money?  In Meta’s case, it has a shiny new product to talk about which is a better position than most of its peers. While it very well may report positive early adoption data, it still has to prove the product will be worth the many billions of dollars spent on it.  — J. Edward Moreno CHART OF THE DAY Brazil registers record fall in deforestation ahead of presidential election Brazil has seen a record fall in deforestation levels of the Amazon, which comes as the country prepares for a critical presidential election.  Left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who pledged to end deforestation by 2030, faces a tight run-off election on Sunday. He faces Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of right-wing former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is expected, like his father, to take a more hands-off approach to forest preservation efforts. — Thomas Jones Snacks Shots 🏛️ Congress: With under two weeks to go until the midterms, prediction markets are pricing Democrats at a 92% chance to take the House of Representatives and a 65% chance to win the Senate. 📊 Senate: Diving a bit deeper into that Senate figure, the most direct pathway to Senate control for the Dems is to flip North Carolina (an increasingly likely prospect given Roy Cooper’s strong polling, with markets giving him a 97% chance at flipping the seat), holding all the seats they currently have, and then flipping any three of five tossup races in Alaska (76% chance of a D flip), Texas (64%), Maine (63%), Ohio (63%) or Iowa (44%).   *Event contracts are offered through Robinhood Derivatives, LLC — probabilities referenced or sourced from KalshiEx LLC or ForecastEx LLC. That’s how much credit default swaps tied to bonds issued by Oracle, SpaceX, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom and Nvidia were traded on average each week in September, up from less than $2 billion in July, according to Morgan Stanley research cited by the Financial Times. That comes as no surprise considering the price of CDS for AI companies — particularly CoreWeave, which has been rattled in the past week — are rising. Investors are piling into CDS, often called “default insurance,” as they seek to hedge their AI bets amid mounting worries about the mountains of debt companies big and large have taken on.  What else we're Snackin' Wall Street banks are increasingly recommending boring… I mean, quality stocks as AI fears mount, Business Insider reporters. General Motors’ board approved a $20 billion stock buyback plan. United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby (who is a millionaire with an M not a B) told The New York Times the US should have an inheritance tax “close to 100%” and that he’d be happy to pay it.  Snack Fact of the Day Cows don't have upper front teeth. Instead, they have a tough dental pad that helps them tear grass from the ground.  Wednesday Meta, Tesla, IBM, and Southwest Airlines results due out after the close. Craving more insights in your inbox? Subscribe to EntryPoint  and Scoreboard for quality reads. Sherwood Media, LLC produces fresh and unique perspectives on topical financial news and is a fully owned subsidiary of Robinhood Markets, Inc., and any views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of any other Robinhood affiliate... See more Sherwood Terms and Conditions Our Editorial Standards Contact Us Advertise With Us Unsubscribe Privacy Policy SHERWOOD MEDIA, LLC, 85 Willow Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025