How the best do it

What do the companies with genuinely great inbound do differently?

The short answer

They pick one content strategy and commit to it for years instead of sampling five. Lenny's breakdown of content-driven growth is a useful map: editorially generated and SEO optimised (Ahrefs, HubSpot), user generated and SEO optimised (Glassdoor, Reddit), data generated (Zapier, Thumbtack), and the virality-optimised variants. The great ones also give the programme a real owner with authority, fund it past the flat months, and build a defensible asset rather than a stream of posts. Clay's growth is the modern version of this: community-driven content where the users, not the marketing team, produce the material that pulls the next cohort in.

Go deeper, your way

4 hand-picked resources, 2 India-specific, 4 link-checked. Pick how you want to dig in.

🎧 Podcast
✓ Link checked India Free Intermediate

Why we picked it The best Indian example of building demand before a product exists: a community launched nine months ahead, a podcast for the same buyers, 100 plus customer conversations, then a launch timed with the funding news. Concrete on the demand gen channels that followed too.

SaaS, Chennai, Acquisition By Freshworks and Building Rocketlane with Founder, Srikrishnan Ganesan

On The Neon Show by Siddhartha Ahluwalia with Srikrishnan Ganesan podcast episode

SaaS, Chennai, Acquisition By Freshworks and Building Rocketlane with Founder, Srikrishnan Ganesan
Watch on YouTube neon.fund →
📰 Newsletter
✓ Link checked Freemium Intermediate

Why we picked it Sorts content strategy into five distinct models (who makes it, what it optimises for) so you can choose one deliberately instead of drifting. Includes how HubSpot, Ahrefs, Intercom and Webflow staffed and funded theirs.

Content-driven growth

From Lenny's Newsletter by Lenny Rachitsky long read

Open lennysnewsletter.com →

The same ground, at another level

How inbound, content and demand gen reads from a different seat.

Everyone says do content. What does inbound actually mean for a startup with no audience? Inbound means someone with the problem finds you while they are looking for an answer, and leaves you a way to follow up. For a startup with no aud... Breaking into GTM 3 resources → How do I decide what to write about so it brings in buyers and not just traffic? Sort every topic idea by how close it sits to a purchase. Comparison pages, alternatives pages, integration pages and "how do I do X with Y" pages ... Doing the work 3 resources → How much of my pipeline should come from inbound versus outbound, and when do I add the second channel? Early on almost every B2B company grows through one dominant channel, so the wrong move is to run four at half strength. Name your primary channel,... Leading a GTM team 4 resources →

Terms in this answer

Search Engine Optimization Virality

People also ask

Everyone says do content. What does inbound actually mean for a startup with no audience? Inbound means someone with the problem finds you while they are looking for an answer, and leaves you a way to follow up. For a startup with no aud... Breaking into GTM 3 resources → I write blog posts and nothing happens. What am I doing wrong? Usually one of three things. You are writing for a persona you invented instead of a real person you have spoken to, so the piece is generically co... Breaking into GTM 3 resources → How do I decide what to write about so it brings in buyers and not just traffic? Sort every topic idea by how close it sits to a purchase. Comparison pages, alternatives pages, integration pages and "how do I do X with Y" pages ... Doing the work 3 resources → Our product is self-serve. How do we get users without a sales team? Product-led companies get most of their new users from two places: organic search (about forty percent) and product virality (about sixteen percent... Doing the work 3 resources → How much of my pipeline should come from inbound versus outbound, and when do I add the second channel? Early on almost every B2B company grows through one dominant channel, so the wrong move is to run four at half strength. Name your primary channel,... Leading a GTM team 4 resources → I run demand gen for an Indian SaaS selling globally. Does the US content playbook work here? Partly. If you sell to the US and Europe, the standard playbook applies because you are competing in the same search results as everyone else, and ... Leading a GTM team 4 resources →

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