Are you a SaaS founder wondering How to Build a Growth Operating System That Helps Teams Deliver Real Value? Growing a B2B SaaS company can often feel messy. Teams try lots of different tactics, hoping that something will finally work. But this kind of scattered approach rarely leads to long-term, repeatable success. In this episode of the Grow Your B2B SaaS Podcast Joran Hofman sits down with growth expert and coach Andrew Capland. Andrew explains how to move beyond one-off growth hacks and start building what he calls a Growth Operating System. This system helps teams focus on delivering real value, work together more effectively, and create results that can scale over time.

Key Timecodes

• (00:00 ) - Cold Open: North Star Metric, Activation vs Retention, and Copying Playbooks Pitfalls

• (01:02 ) - Host Introduction: B2B SaaS Growth Operating System with Andrew Capland

• (01:46 ) - Why Tactics Alone Fail: The Case for a Growth Operating System in B2B SaaS

• (02:01 ) - Andrew’s Journey: From Growth Content to Executing a Growth Operating System

• (03:40 ) - When to Implement a Growth OS: From Random Acts of Growth to Repeatable Systems

• (04:20 ) - Growth OS Building Blocks: Strategy, KPIs, Rituals, Templates, Frameworks

• (05:37 ) - Plug-and-Play Templates: Customizing the Growth Operating System for Your Stage

• (06:25 ) - Growth Strategy 101: North Star, Vision, Levers, Bets, and Milestones

• (07:25 ) - Choosing a North Star Metric: Activation and Retention as Leading Indicators

• (08:31 ) - Activation Example: The Facebook “7 Friends in 5 Days” North Star Metric

• (09:43 ) - Defining Activation: Customer Interviews, Milestones, and Value Realization

• (10:47 ) - Cross-Functional Growth: Sales, Product, CS Inputs and Growth Leadership

• (12:26 ) - Earning Ownership: Become the Expert on the Problem (Activation/Retention)

• (15:14 ) - Sponsor Break: SaaStock Dublin – B2B SaaS Founder Networking and Investors

• (16:45 ) - Founder vs Growth Leader: Ownership Shifts from Early Stage to Scale

• (17:35 ) - Common Growth Mistakes: Copy-Pasting Big Tech Playbooks vs ICP Fit

• (19:06 ) - Case Study: Airbnb Referral Program Copycat That Flopped (and Why)

• (20:13 ) - Managing Growth Setbacks: Trophy File Mindset and Learning-First Experiments

• (23:08 ) - Using AI in Growth: Train on Your A/B Tests, Learnings, and Audience Data

• (25:16 ) - Documentation is a Growth Lever: Standardize Learnings and Onboarding

• (26:20 ) - Hiring Your First Head of Growth: Skill-Problem Fit and Translating Jargon

• (28:40 ) - Alignment First: What Growth Owns, Accountability, and Collaboration Rules

• (29:20 ) - Problem Selection: Scoping High-Leverage Bets and Measuring Outcomes

• (30:34 ) - Low-Volume SaaS: Qualitative Research, Session Recordings, and User Testing

• (32:12 ) - Essential Tool Stack: CRM/Marketing Automation, Product Analytics, In-App Messaging

• (33:45 ) - The Next 2–3 Years: Train AI on Proprietary Growth Data to Predict Outcomes

• (35:23 ) - Stage Advice: From 0–10K MRR—Find One Acquisition Channel and One Retention Channel