# Baremetrics painkiller message before channel choice

> Rewrite the pitch around the painful manual job the product removes before debating which acquisition channel deserves attention.

- Canonical HTML: https://growth.iangoh.com/growth-ideas/baremetrics-painkiller-message-before-channel-choice/
- Source: [baremetrics.com](https://baremetrics.com/blog/first-100-customers)
- GrowthDex source hub: [Baremetrics: How We Got Our First 100 Customers](/sources/baremetrics-how-we-got-our-first-100-customers-baremetrics-com/)
- Last checked: 2026-06-07T03:06:38.102Z
- Rarity: uncommon
- Budget: low
- Channels: Positioning, Messaging, Customer Research
- Stages: positioning, messaging, painkiller, customer research


## Why this can grow

Baremetrics did not treat Twitter as magic. Josh Pigford’s own explanation is that the channel carried because the pain was obvious: founders were spending hours each week in spreadsheets or building partial Stripe API dashboards. The practical growth move is to make the pain plain enough that the channel becomes a delivery route, not the strategy. If the product saves time, saves money, or creates value, the message should say that in the buyer’s working language before the team spends weeks optimizing posting cadence.

## Ian's take

From scaling consumer platforms across MENA and Southeast Asia, my default is to distrust growth work that only looks good in a slide. My bias is to treat this as a small market test first. Make the audience narrow, make the promise concrete, and let the first real response decide whether it deserves more work. I would run it small enough to learn quickly, then only scale the parts that real users repeat, save, reply to, or buy from. For this tactic, I would watch one clear growth signal before putting more time or budget behind it.

## Action plan

1. Define one narrow startup segment where baremetrics painkiller message before channel choice can create a measurable lift.
2. Turn the tactic into one offer, page, campaign, or workflow for the Positioning and Messaging channel.
3. Use the evidence from baremetrics.com to set the first version of the message, format, and audience.
4. Launch a small test for 7 to 14 days with one success metric: one measurable growth signal.
5. Review the result, keep the winning message, remove weak variants, and turn the learning into a repeatable growth playbook.

## Source-backed example

Baremetrics framed the product around replacing manual Stripe metric spreadsheets and half-built internal API dashboards with instant subscription metrics.

## Adjacent tactics in the same lane

- [Baremetrics paying-customer rebuild doubles revenue](/growth-ideas/baremetrics-paying-customer-rebuild-doubles-revenue/) - same source, 1 shared channel
- [Calendly competitor teardown before first build](/growth-ideas/calendly-competitor-teardown-before-first-build/) - 2 shared channels, 2 shared stages
- [Baremetrics paid-only word-of-mouth proof](/growth-ideas/baremetrics-paid-only-word-of-mouth-proof/) - same source
- [Baremetrics Twitter-native customer proof loop](/growth-ideas/baremetrics-twitter-native-customer-proof-loop/) - same source

## Read GrowthDex essays

Browse the plain-English essay index at [GrowthDex Blog](/blog/).

## Related GrowthDex essays

- [Word-of-mouth needs something to carry](/blog/word-of-mouth-needs-something-to-carry/) - b2b saas, word of mouth, product-led growth

## Advisory

If you want help turning this into a working growth system, Ian Goh offers advisory at https://iangoh.com/advisory.