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Intuition
"We want to grow 20%" is the most common boardroom demand, and a growth case asks how. The instinct is to brainstorm a hundred ideas; the skill is to organize the universe of growth into a few clean avenues, then judge which fits this company's strengths and economics. Growth has a shape: sell more of what you have, sell new things, reach new people, or buy your way in.
The crucial discipline is remembering that growth isn't automatically good. Profitable, executable growth is good. Growth that burns cash and stretches the company thin is how companies break.
Framework
A growth structure (the Ansoff lens helps):
Existing products → existing customers, sell more (frequency, share of wallet, price).
New products → existing customers, extend the line, cross-sell to your loyal base.
Existing products → new customers/markets, new geographies, segments, channels.
New products → new markets (diversification), riskiest; usually last resort.
Inorganic, acquire, partner, or license to grow faster.
For each avenue, test: market opportunity, our ability to win, profitability, and execution risk. Then prioritize.
Growth prompts → first move
0/4 recalled
Worked Example
A premium yoga-apparel brand wants to double revenue. Existing/existing: raise frequency via a membership program, quick, on-brand. New product/existing customer: launch footwear and recovery gear to its loyal base, strong fit. Existing product/new market: expand into Europe, large but operationally heavy. New/new (a yoga-studio chain): far afield and capability-stretching, deprioritize. Recommendation: lead with the loyal-base plays (membership + adjacent products) because they leverage the brand's biggest asset, its devoted customers, at the lowest risk, then layer in geographic expansion. You generated options, then ranked them by fit and risk.
For a B2B contrast: an industrial pump manufacturer wants 15% growth, and the weak answer jumps straight to "enter Asia." The strong answer starts closer to home: the installed base of 40, 000 pumps generates almost no aftermarket revenue, while competitors earn 30% of sales from service contracts and spare parts. Selling more to existing customers, maintenance plans, monitoring sensors, refurbishment, is higher-margin, plays to an asset competitors can't touch, and needs no new market knowledge. The biggest avenue was sitting in the existing-customer column the whole time.
Sort it, no overlaps
Which growth avenue?
Tap each card to cycle it into a bucket, then grade the board.
1 · More to existing customers2 · New product, same customers3 · Same product, new market4 · Inorganic
In the room
Resist the urge to brainstorm. Open with the map: "Rather than list ideas, I'd organize growth into four avenues: selling more to existing customers, new products to that base, taking what we have to new markets, and inorganic moves like acquisition. For each, I'd test the size of the opportunity, our right to win, the profitability, and whether we can execute." Then signal that prioritization is coming: "I suspect the answer is a sequence, not a single bet." The follow-up is guaranteed: "Fine, which one would you do first?" Interviewers are forcing a commitment, so make one and defend it with fit-and-risk logic, not market size: "I'd start with the loyal-customer plays, fastest payback, lowest execution risk, and use that cash to fund the geographic expansion." A ranked answer beats a complete one.
Pitfalls
Brainstorming ideas without a structure to organize and prioritize them.
Chasing the biggest market instead of the best fit with the company's strengths.
Treating revenue growth as the goal while ignoring whether it's profitable and executable.
Take it with you
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Now train it
Reading this lesson was the easy half. These take the same move live:
