Why Pre-Seed and Seed-Stage Startups Need a Growth Marketing Engine

You might not have a formal growth strategy yet. You might still be refining the product. But the pressure is there. Investors want traction. Advisors ask about acquisition. Your team wants direction. And the runway isn’t infinite.

This article was put together by Growth Division, a team that works with pre-seed, seed and early Series A startups trying to move from scattered activity to something repeatable. Led by Tristan Gillan, their focus isn’t on growth hacks. It’s helping founders understand where growth actually comes from before scaling it.

If you’re trying to turn early traction into something you can rely on, this is the conversation worth having.

The Question That Matters More Than “How Do We Get More Customers?”

At this stage, the default question is obvious: how do we acquire more customers?

The better question is slightly uncomfortable: do we actually understand why the customers we already have converted?

Early-stage growth often feels busy. There’s activity everywhere. Campaigns running. Conversations happening. But when you look closely, it’s not always clear what’s genuinely working versus what’s coincidentally landing.

You might have leads coming in. But is there a clear pattern?

You might see conversions. But could you confidently recreate them?

If the answer is “not really”, that’s not failure. It’s normal. But it’s a sign that scale shouldn’t be the next move.

Clarity should be.

Why Most Marketing Advice Doesn’t Translate at the Early Stage

A lot of growth advice assumes you already know who your ideal customer is. It assumes your messaging is stable. It assumes your funnel metrics are mature enough to optimise.

Pre-seed and seed startups rarely have that luxury.

You’re still learning who responds fastest. You’re still discovering what language actually resonates. Your positioning might change three times in six months. That’s part of building something real.

Trying to scale too early usually leads to one of two outcomes. You burn money validating assumptions you should have tested more thoroughly. Or you get inconsistent results and lose confidence in channels that might have worked with more structure.

Early-stage growth isn’t about pushing harder. It’s about tightening the feedback loop.

What a Growth Marketing Engine Really Means

A growth engine isn’t complicated. It’s disciplined.

It’s a way of turning assumptions into insight without overcommitting too early.

Instead of asking whether a campaign “performed well”, you ask what it revealed. Did it confirm who converts fastest? Did it expose friction in the messaging? Did it show that a channel attracts the wrong audience entirely?

At this stage, growth marketing is less about volume and more about refinement.

You’re trying to understand who moves through your funnel quickest. Which problem framing triggers action? Which channel produces a consistent signal rather than random spikes? And, slowly, where your unit economics begin to look sensible.

This approach doesn’t feel flashy. It feels methodical. But it builds something more valuable than short-term wins: confidence.

When you have evidence behind your growth decisions, scaling becomes strategic rather than hopeful.

What Founders and Heads of Growth Should Be Thinking About

If you’re leading growth at seed or early Series A, the temptation is to expand. More channels. More campaigns. More activity.

But expansion without repeatability just adds complexity.

The real test is simple. If you increased investment tomorrow, would results scale proportionally? Or would performance drop because you’re still relying on partial understanding?

Do you know why customers convert, or do you just know that some of them do?

Is your customer acquisition cost trending in the right direction as you learn, or does it fluctuate because each campaign is essentially a fresh guess?

Strong early-stage teams treat growth the way they treat product development. They test deliberately. They define what success looks like before they launch. When something underperforms, they shut it down without thinking it through. When something shows a consistent signal, they go deeper.

Over time, that discipline compounds.

It’s usually the difference between startups that stall after early excitement and those that enter Series A or B with genuine momentum.

Case Study Snapshot: Weavr

Weavr, an embedded finance solution for B2B SaaS, had early interest but lacked clarity on where to focus its acquisition. Marketing efforts were active, yet outcomes weren’t predictable enough to confidently scale.

The work began by formalising their martech setup and tightening persona definition. Instead of spreading the budget across every possible channel, experiments were structured to identify the real signal. Search engine marketing and direct outreach quickly stood out as consistent performers.

The result was more than 175 marketing-qualified leads and an 87 per cent increase in monthly SEM leads, alongside validation of four distinct customer personas.

The shift wasn’t just numerical. It was strategic. The team knew where growth was coming from and could invest with conviction.

Case Study Snapshot: SeedLegals

SeedLegals was growing quickly, but internally the commercial engine wasn’t keeping pace. Sales and marketing systems lacked alignment, creating friction in the customer journey and limiting efficiency.

Rather than chasing new acquisition channels, the focus turned inward. Workflows were restructured, automation introduced, and CRM processes strengthened to support scale without unnecessary complexity.

The result was a more streamlined growth infrastructure. Conversion improved, visibility increased, and the team could scale activity without compounding operational strain.

Growth doesn’t always require more input. Sometimes it requires a better structure.

Why This Work Matters Before Series A

By the time you’re raising Series A or B, investors expect predictability. Not perfection, but patterns. They want to see that growth isn’t accidental.

That confidence is built long before the fundraising process starts.

It’s built when you decide to prioritise learning over noise. When you validate channels properly. When you understand your economics before amplifying them.

This is often why founders choose to work with a london based growth marketing agency specialising in growing series A and series b funded start ups. Not because they can’t execute internally, but because introducing structure early reduces risk later.

Growth should feel deliberate by the time you’re scaling.

Growth Before Scale

At the pre-seed and seed stage, it’s tempting to look bigger than you are. To act like a scaled company before you’ve built the foundations.

But sustainable growth rarely comes from acceleration alone. It comes from understanding.

Understanding who converts and why. Understanding where acquisition is repeatable. Understanding which experiments deserve investment and which deserve to end.

Build that engine first.

Scale comes naturally after.

Closing Thought from Tristan Gillan

“At this stage, founders don’t need more tactics. They need clarity. Growth shouldn’t feel chaotic – even if outcomes are still evolving. When you understand who your customer is, why they convert, and where growth genuinely comes from, scaling becomes far less risky.”