Andrew Capland

Coach for heads of growth | PLG advisor | former growth @ Postscript, Wistia, HubSpot

I help heads of growth have more influence and impact with 1:1 coaching -  and I help early-stage SaaS teams scale as a product-led growth advisor.

After coaching more than 50 clients, it's become clear... Most Growth Teams face the same struggles:

You’re not always sure which lever to pull to drive meaningful impact.

You don’t have a repeatable operating system, so there's no structured process for prioritizing experiments, aligning across teams, or scaling execution

You're spending too much time convincing instead of executing. You're constantly selling ideas internally, securing resources, and fighting for buy-in.

Your role feels misunderstood because your boss has never done your job, and leadership sees the numbers but doesn’t always recognize the full impact of growth.

You’re ready for the next level but don’t have a clear roadmap to get there.

I'm Andrew

I’m the former growth lead at two high-volume PLG businesses: Director of Growth at Wistia, and Head of Growth at Postscript.

I’ve been where you are.

I’ve built and scaled growth teams from scratch, run hundreds of experiments, and made every mistake in the book. I know what "good" looks like, and I know how overwhelming it can feel without mentorship from someone who's done your job.

Now, I take everything I've learned to help other growth leaders increase their impact and influence.

☎️ Book a call to work with me ☎️
https://deliveringvalue.co/get-started

Founder

Delivering Value offers coaching & advising for product-led growth teams.

Because scaling a product-led business is hard. It's a really effective go-to market model, when done right. But, it’s still relatively new and most companies don’t have someone with extensive PLG experience. 

That means you spend a lot of time and money making mistakes trying to figure it out. Or, you feel overwhelmed by all the content out there, trying to teach yourself.

That’s were the idea of Delivering Value was born. To help early-stage tech companies save time by avoiding common mistakes, learn proven frameworks & methods instead of trying to figure it out themselves, & ultimately grow faster.

Services include:
* 1:1 coaching for heads of growth
* PLG advising for SaaS teams
* Digital products for the growth community

I specialize in helping clients who work at small to mid-sized SaaS companies (usually starting around $8-$10 million in ARR), not tech unicorns. If that sounds like you, send me a message!

My friend took a new job and said, "i'm sure it'll be a sh*t show there too - I just don't know why yet." He figured he'd give it one year, then reevaluate the fit.

That was the smartest career advice I've ever heard.

He'd just spent eight years at the same company, and left frustrated. Things had changed so much over the last two. So, instead of pressure-testing every new gig against some unrealistic criteria, he set a different goal.

"I'll give it one year, then see how it feels."

That framing changed how I think about my own career. And it's changed how I coach every client who's nervous about saying yes to another difficult founder, another early-stage company that might not work out, another opportunity that doesn't check all the boxes.

I've started calling it, “the one year deal.”

Because things are changing so fast.

The "hot" companies of 2026 weren't on anyone's radar two years ago. And companies that felt "safe" two years ago, have struggled to maintain PMF. 

Nobody predicted this.

The most successful VPs and leaders know this better than anyone. They move around. They find perfect moment-fit, not forever-fit. 

And when the moment changes, they go find a new company where the fit is right again.

Go in with eyes open. Give it everything you've got. Then sit down with yourself after a year and ask: does this still fit? Is this still the right place for me?

If yes, great. If not, you're not a failure. You did exactly what you were supposed to do.

The guilt you're feeling about taking a job that doesn't check every box is the wrong story.

The right story is: I made a smart decision for where I am right now, and I'm going to own it with intention.

Coach for heads of growth | PLG advisor | Former 2x growth lead (Wistia, Postscript) | Co-Founder Camp Solo | Host Growing Forward Pod 🎙️

As of this month, I've been running my business 4.5 years, which is longer than I held any of my previous w2 jobs. But there was a moment about two and a half years in where I wasn't sure I was going to make it.

I didn't leave my last startup job because things were going great. 

After thirteen years in SaaS, five startups, and two layoffs - I was burnt out, anxious, and desperately needed a reset. 

Starting my own thing felt like the way out.

But early 2024, I found myself right back in the same place.

We moved.
We had another baby. 
And then, I lost a few clients

All in the same window. 

My head was stressed about work and our finances. I was exhausted from a newborn. And every day I had this feeling that I was failing at both.

Not doing work right. Not being a present dad.

And underneath all of it was this weird guilt - because I had left the startup world to specifically avoid feeling this way. 

Here I was, feeling it again. Except now it was my fault.

I started quietly debating whether to go back in-house.

I didn't. 

But it was closer than I've ever admitted publicly.

Four and a half years later, my roster has been full for the last twelve months straight. 

But I wish I could go back in time, and whisper to myself that everything was going to be okay.

Still glad I didn't fold.

One day, my CEO walked over to my desk, sat down next to me, and said, "stop, that's not your job."

I still remember that moment vividly.

We hadn't worked much together at that point. So it was a heart-racing moment at the time.

Before I started and scaled my first growth team - I was a growth marketer focused on user acquisition. 

And our CEO would occasionally Slack me ideas he'd heard from his startup founder network - tests they'd run, channels they were scaling, copy that converted, and other random stuff they'd tried.

And every single time, I said "yes, great call. Adding it to the next sprint."

I thought I was being helpful. 

But he saw the situation differently.

He said: "My job is to bring growth ideas to the right person - that's you. Your job is to evaluate if the ideas are any good for us. Not to automatically say yes because I'm the CEO. I have bad ideas all the time."

That conversation changed how I think about prioritization entirely.

Because until that point, I'd been rewarded for saying yes. For being helpful. For taking things on. That instinct got me promotions and raises before.

But that instinct was also quietly costing me.

Every yes meant something more important got delayed. Every yes meant my actual priorities got diluted. And every yes sent a signal that I didn’t have a clear point of view on what actually mattered.

And after coaching more than 90+ growth leaders since then, I've learned the ones who build the most influence and impact say no way more than they say yes.

(and when they do say no, they explain the trade-off clearly: "If we take this on, here's what we're delaying.")

That's how you build trust.

I made a video breaking down the 5 prioritization skills that separate growth leaders who have real impact from the ones who just stay busy.

Take a peek on youtube if you want my deep dive here https://lnkd.in/eXXGYfsJ

When used appropriately, saying no can be a career superpower.

I just spent 5 days snowboarding with my dad in Utah (and slept on a couch the entire time). 10/10 would do it again.

Last Tuesday, I headed to Powder Mountain. A place I've been with my dad and my uncle a few times before. While my my wife, my two kids, and my mother-in-law held it down at home. 

And for the first two days, I was super distracted. 

Thinking about my family. Feeling selfish for taking a personal trip and being gone for so long. Second-guessing the timing. Objectively, it wasn't a great week to disappear.

Then something happened on the chairlift.

It was snowing hard (which was an absolute gift if you've been following the snow situation out west). And I finally settled in.

Being in the mountains tends to do that to me.

I wasn't stressing about my next linkedin post. How behind I feel about the AI tech stack. Or thinking about my group program launch. 

Just sitting next to my Dad on a chairlift in the mountains, feeling genuinely grateful for the time.

Younger me would have taken that moment for granted.

But I just turned 40 (and my Dad is 70) and with two little kiddos at home these moments don't happen as often as they used to.

Here's the part I find a little embarrassing: 

I tell growth leaders this all the time. When things get busiest, when the pressure is highest - when you're feeling the most burnout - that's exactly when you need to step back and refill the cup. 

But I had a million reasons why I couldn't do this myself.

The couch wasn't comfortable - and my back and quads are still tight. But this trip was exactly what I needed to get my creative juices flowing again.

No alternative text description for this image

My guest pulled up his worst performance review and read it out loud:

"I've yet to see Dan make teams greater than the sum of their parts."

He'd been a senior leader at Reforge. Built teams at HubSpot. Sold a company to HubSpot before that.

And the thing that made him exceptional as an individual contributor was quietly killing his team's ability to function without him.

I didn't say anything in that moment. 
Because I've lived a version of this myself.

I can remember reading my own review the night before my performance convo.

There was a line (that's permanently seared into my brain) about how my exec team hoped I'd have more impact in my role.

The company had prioritized hiring more devs vs staffing my team. So I'd been scoping projects to the resources I had available vs advocating for what I really needed. I thought I was being a team player. Adjusting without complaining.

But the next day, sitting across from my manager, he said something that caught me off-guard:

"Your job is to pound the table for what you need. If you're not getting it, break down 99 doors until you get through the 100th. That's your job. Not to let up."

My honest first reaction? I don't want to pound the table. I just want to quietly do good work and let it speak for itself.

But I didn't push back. Because underneath that reaction, I knew he was right.

In the process I learned one of the hardest parts of growing as a leader: doing the right thing might not always feel good for you.

And the skill that earned me the role (being a great team player and adapting to changing resource constraints) was the exact skill now holding me back in it.

Daniel Wolchonok's version of this story is more brutal than mine. He read the actual review out loud on the podcast. 

I can't do his story justice. So I hope you catch the full thing yourself:

YouTube: https://lnkd.in/eMQrniSt
Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eD47Yh5n

We can't be the only ones. What's your version of this?

My dad: "Hey buddy, how's it going?"

Me: "I feel really anxious, but I can't figure out why."

Also me: "Have you ever felt like that?"

My dad, after a pause: "Uh, no. I don't think so."

Then we both laughed. But I wasn't really laughing.

That was me at peak imposter syndrome + burnout. I woke up tired and anxious almost every morning during that time. 

Always focused on what I hadn't done.
Ways I was falling short. 
Goals I hadn't hit.

I didn't even realize how much my focus was impacting my confidence until my coach asked me a question during one of our sessions:

"What was a win you had this week?"

I gave her one. 

She said: "What else?"

And I came up with another. 

She kept pushing. By the time I had three, I realized - I actually had been doing okay. I was just ignoring my wins. And instead focusing on what I hadn't done well.

She gave me an assignment: 

Write down 3 wins every day.

Didn't have to be big. Praise from a teammate. An experiment that moved the needle. A hard conversation I didn't avoid. A KPI headed in the right direction.

And after a few weeks of this exercise I realized that my brain started scanning for wins during the day instead of scanning for everything I hadn't done yet. 

Like a muscle. The more I trained it, the stronger it got.

I've given this same assignment to almost every client I've coached. It's not a cure for imposter syndrome. But it's one of the most underrated tools I know for rebuilding your confidence over time.

If you're a growth leader who's been silently carrying that "general state of uneasiness" - you're not alone. 

Most people just don't have the courage to say this stuff out loud.

And if nobody's asked you how you're actually doing lately, I'm asking.

"We're just too busy. There are more things we could be doing. We don't have time to do them."

I've heard some version of this from almost every new Director trying to make a case for more headcount.

And I get it. You ARE too busy.

But so is every other team lead asking for another hire right now.

And "we're drowning" is not a compelling hiring argument. That's just how it usually feels working at a startup.

On a call last week, I pushed back on a client who came in with exactly this framing. I asked them one question:

"Are you hiring to get rid of work that feels annoying - or are you hiring into an opportunity that would move the needle in a major way for the business?"

They paused. Nobody had ever framed it that way for them.

Here's what I've seen from the growth leaders who are most effective at getting headcount approved:

They lead with what's being left on the table. Not how busy they are. 

They walk into that conversation and say:

"If we had someone who could execute on X, here's what we'd be able to achieve. Here's what it would mean for our main goals. And here's what it's costing us every month we don't."

That's a more compelling case.

The modeling/math can go in the appendix (of however you make this argument). But the story, the opportunity, and the cost of inaction - that's what you lead with.

(The one exception: if YOU are the specific bottleneck on something that would unlock outsized impact for the business, then yes - hiring to free you up is absolutely the right move. But that's a different argument, and it still needs to be framed as opportunity, not overwhelm.)

I’ve found this approach works much better.

I spent years pushing for a promotion - and felt completely lost after I got it.

I was leading a cross-functional growth team at a cool tech startup. The title I'd been chasing. Director of Growth. 

I'd told myself everything would be way easier once I got that title. People would finally trust my decisions. I wouldn't have to fight so hard for budget, justify extra headcount, or sell my strategy up down and sideways.

But within a few weeks I realized I was having the same debates - with a new title. It was frustrating.

I just wanted to quietly do good work. 

I didn't want to complain. Because who complains after a promotion? 

But on the inside I was really frustrated because I had pushed so hard for something I wasn't enjoying.

My team could hear about it - that would impact their motivation. My execs definitely couldn't know - they'd question if I was the right person for that job. And talking about it at dinner with my wife felt crazy.

It wasn't until I started working with a coach that I learned this is actually a documented thing. High performers who've spent years working toward a goal often fall into a low-grade depression after they achieve it.

The person chasing the goal was their identity. When the goal is gone, so is the motivation and sense of self.

That conversation didn't fix everything. 

But it was the first time I'd said it out loud to someone who didn't need anything from me. Someone I could think out loud with without it costing me anything.

It took me months to figure out a new title wasn't the finish line.

Mike Rome

- Cut my teeth in management consulting
- Left for tech & startups in 2012
- Been scaling growth-stage cos. since

ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

- Helped many scale to 8-figs, incl. $50M+
- Acquired millions of paying customers
- Led growth for Top 100 Inc 5000 brand
- Built & led growth teams of 15+
- Managed 8-fig budgets with clear ROI
- Advised startups raising combined $250M+
- C-Suite for two 100+ person cos. (CMO, CGO)
- Taught at top MBAs (Kellogg) & accelerators (Techstars)

HOW I CAN HELP:

- Growth & Marketing Audits
- Ads Management
- Creative & Conversion Advisory

EMAIL:

- mike@moonwater.co

Fractional CMO & CGO, Startup Advisor

moonwater is a growth studio to help top tech companies scale. Companies hire me as a Fractional CMO or CGO, or Growth Advisor.

My team overlaps for 1 hour a day, Monday–Friday.

Outside of that, I don’t know where they are or when they work.

We’re small. Focused. Big on follow-through.

We’re careful about what we say yes to. We don’t miss deadlines. We value consistency.

That’s the culture.

High standards. High trust.

It’s also been our best year yet.

—


Thanks  Matt for the inspo 🙏

New Mexico selfie - out hiking in the snow.

Moonwater is small.
Very intentionally.

Freedom and optionality matter more to me than scale for the sake of scale.

We don’t have a fast-growing team.
We don’t do 8-figure revenue.

But we’re profitable.
And we keep things simple.

Last week I booked a quiet place in Chicago and spent ~36 hours building software to improve our offering.

No approvals.
No big plan.
Just a clear head and time to build.

We won’t make headlines.
But it’s the right business for me.

And it works well for our team and clients.

That’s enough.

View of Chicago skyline from the 67th floor.

Don’t buy into the AI fear-mongering.
 
The next 6-12 months won’t define you.
 
In 6-12 months, most things will change again.
 
The tools, models, and agents...all of it.
 
How we use AI right now will look clunky by then.
 
I'm not saying ignore AI. Definitely dive in. The productivity gains are real.
 
What’s bogus is that we’re in some tiny window you’ll miss if you don’t sprint.
 
Get curious. Hop in. Build things.
 
But then...put it down.
 
Get outside. Breath. Take care of yourself.
 
Ignore the land grab for AI clicks.
 
Try not to freak out about what’s ahead.
 
Everyone’s feeling it too.

Hiking in the mountains alongside a rocky river in the western US.

The hardest question in a DTC brand gets asked every Monday:
 
“What ads should we make next?”
 
Most teams:
– scroll TikTok
– pull competitor ads
– write random scripts
– test and hope
 
That’s not a strategy.
That’s guessing.
 
We built a decision email instead:
 
– 8 ads to make next (weekly)
– customized to your brand
– based on $50M+ in real DTC spend
 
No trend chasing.
No random testing.
No generic AI output.
 
Comment “LESS” and I’ll send you a free brief with 8 ads to test for your brand.

Claude this.
Agent that.
“Marketing is dead.”
“No wait, marketing is great.”

What. Is. Going. On?

Go use AI, but ignore the fear-mongering.

…mostly just a land grab for shitty clicks and half-baked ideas.

Ive fell for plenty:
-Great hook.
-Shallow product.
-Never actually taken to the finish line.

Go use AI.
But don’t start with viral, FOMO threads.
Start with pains in your actual workday.

What’s recurring?
What’s manual?
What’s frustrating?

Then read. Tinker. Build. Break it. Build it again.

I’m also long on products that curate. Because the number of choices (often bad) just exploded.

And marketers have never been more anxious about what to do next.

9 boring Meta wins that quietly drive scale:
 
No new hook.
No new angle.
No new framework.
 
Just stuff most accounts quietly get wrong.
 
🔲 Meta Pixel clean in Events Manager

🔲 Purchase firing browser-side

🔲 Purchase firing server-side (CAPI live + deduped)

🔲 Purchase as the only primary conversion

🔲 Reported purchases actually match orders

🔲 Secondary events set up (New vs Return, Engaged View, ATC, Checkout)

🔲 EMQ ≥ 8 on Purchase

🔲 Rich parameters passing back (value, product IDs, etc.)

🔲 UTMs applied at the account level
 
None of this will make you feel like a marketing genius.
 
But I can’t tell you how many 7–8 figure brands miss half of these.
 
And then wonder why scaling feels “inconsistent.”
 
Everyone wants the next winning ad.
 
Almost no one wants to check the plumbing.
 
Boring wins first.
Then you earn the right to scale.

Most 7-8 figure brands aren’t making decisions off the #1 metric to scale ads profitably:
 
New Customer ROAS
 
To be clear, NOT ROAS.
 
Total ROAS is a vanity metric.
Easy to fake.
Lots of agency offenders.
 
Below Avg Brands use ROAS.
Avg Brands use ROAS + exclusions.
Top Brands use New Customer Value / Spend.
 
To do it, you need a New Customer Only purchase event.
 
Without it, you’re playing basketball with one hand behind your back.
 
“Media buying is dead” is an excuse for brands & agencies not going beyond Media Buying 101.

Ad KPI table shows New Customers, Cost per New Customer, and New Customer ROAS.

I’ve bet my agency’s culture on respecting time.
 
Clients of course.
But our team even more so.
 
We’re small (3 people). 
No plans to hire. 
But I care a ton about what it’s like to work here.
 
My bar for culture is simple:
 
When my team gets approached (happens often, they’re elite), they’re a quick “hell no.”
 
And respecting time is a top leading indicator for “hell no.”

A Slack msg to my team highlights how we value each other's time.

~15% of my LinkedIn feed is AI slop, Ads, or Engagement bait

Built a Chrome extension that collapses all of it.

Feed finally feels human again.

Holler if you'd like to try it.

6 creative ways to target Facebook Groups (since you can’t with ads):
 
1. Pay admins to post native content
Sponsored posts directly inside.
 
2. Interest + behavior stacking
Hyper-niche interests to approximate group.
 
3. Target adjacent pages
Who’s the group following most?
 
4. Build an email list from group activity
VA  → get emails → upload as custom audience.
 
5. Pixel via niche content
Drive members to relevant content, pixel, then retarget.
 
6. Engagement-based lookalikes
Heavy engagers → match to emails → build lookalikes.
 
Fully ICE scored so you don’t have to
(Impact × Confidence / Effort).
 
Great for high ACV, smaller TAM brands.

3 numbers agencies hide to avoid getting fired:

Every CEO and CMO should know them.

1. 90% of agencies
2. Spend 80% of their time
3. On 20% of their clients

The ones who scream the loudest.
The ones who refuse to play fair.

A brutal shake for most brands.

Why does it happen?
The agency can’t afford to lose anyone.

- Bloated teams
- Heavy fixed costs
- Desperation to retain

When we started, we set non-negotiables.
This was one of them:

Similar fees. Similar time. Simple.

Shouldn’t be a differentiator. But it is.

Top performance marketers have an edge no one talks about:
 
They give the team confidence to say no.
 
A founder sent us this last week:
 
“Collaborative partners who execute fast, test repeatedly, and keep us focused on what moves the needle.”
 
That last line matters most.
 
Before Moonwater, I spent 10+ years in-house.
Worked my way up to $50M+ CMO.
Hired a lot of agencies.
 
What always shocked me:
 
How little editing went on.
 
Too many yes-men (and women).
Too much reacting.
Endless motion. Very little leverage.
 
Do what the CEO says.
Chase the latest idea.
Stay busy.
 
We do the opposite.
 
We do less.
We cut more.
We say no often.
 
Then we put disproportionate energy into the few things that actually matter.
 
More effective for brands.
Way more fulfilling for us.

Email proof showing the client testimonial noted.

Too much ad creative analysis goes way too deep.
 
30 slide decks.
Frame-by-frame breakdowns.
Scroll stop, thumb stop, hold rate.
 
All pulled from expensive software.
That invents metrics to justify price.
 
It sounds smart. And sometimes it is.
 
…but a lot of it is just expensive overthinking.
 
Brands end up obsessing over trees and miss the forest.
 
Most great ads come back to higher-level things:
 
Who is this for?
What pain are we naming clearly?
What belief are we challenging?
What objection are we removing?
What angle are we committing to?
 
The weeds can help optimize a winner.
But they rarely create one.

Wild how many ad tools are built around “what your competitors are doing.”

“Find competitors in seconds.”
“Learn their keywords.”
“See their hooks and angles.”

Posts like this explode and I often wonder…what’s the point?

Patagonia didn’t explode following The North Face.

Porsche didn’t build the 911 designing like the rest.

Nike didn’t become Nike mimicking the  industry.

Maybe fine if you’re happy playing catch-up. Always the lesser brand following someone better.

But that’s not why I got into marketing.

I got into it to tell stories.
To build brands that are authentic.
To make people actually feel something.

You don’t get that from a Claude prompt. Or overpriced software scraping someone else.

The best marketing comes from understanding your customer better than anyone.

…and standing for something no one else has.

taplio

The Battle

Andrew Capland

Mike Rome

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreAndrew Capland's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreMike Rome's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Andrew Capland

Mike Rome

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Andrew Capland's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreMike Rome's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreAndrew Capland's LinkedIn Performance