Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

“We’re beating the same drum we always have,” says Andrew Goldner, Founding Partner and Chief Executive Officer of Growth^X, who adds, “We’re preaching the gospel of go-to-market.”

The firm is laser-focused on what he 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. Goldner describes these founders as “bottom-up business builders . . . bootstrappers.” He says they have small business values and rigor coupled with big tech ambitions.

Growth^X helps them find  product-market fit. “First we help, then we invest, and together we rise,” Goldner says.

It had been nearly seven years since we had last interviewed the former resident of Silicon Valley who relocated his family to Nashville in 2016. We reconnected during Launch Tennessee’s “3686 Entrepreneurship Festival” in September.

While Goldner says that the focus of Growth^X remains the same as its name implies, the firm’s ability to support many more start-ups has expanded exponentially since the team launched its get-to-market platform. “Our platform allows us to help 300 to 500 companies a year rather than three to five that we could serve before,” he explained.

How is that possible? Goldner says it is a combination of the platform and network of certified get-to-market coaches.

“We’re pretty methodical in our approach,” he says.

Growth-minded founders looking to engage should check out the Revenue Accelerator, the 16-week program from Growth^X.

Launched just over two years ago, Goldner says The Revenue Accelerator is all about “making money, not raising money.” It helps business-to-business (B2B) founders get to market and grow revenue by pairing them with a dedicated get-to-market expert and proven sales playbooks covering every step along the path to product-market fit.

“We found that accelerators weren’t graduating investor-ready start-ups,” Goldner said, explaining that Growth^X now sees 80 percent of the participants in The Revenue Accelerator being a referral from an accelerator program, an economic development agency, or a co-investor.

During the four months which is an all-virtual, rigorous program, the start-up is assigned a coach who works with the founder to identify what is needed to grow revenue, what constitutes success, and where are the gaps in product-market fit that must be addressed. And then they do the work together to deliver real revenue results.

The fee is $8,000, and the next cohort begins in January.

Growth^X is also in the process of raising a fund to invest in the best performing start-ups that graduate from The Revenue Accelerator.

---