For paid growth, ensure you have revenue before investing in ads, and understand your customer acquisition cost (CAC) versus the lifetime value (LTV) of your users to ensure profitability.

There are three types of growth: sticky growth, which focuses on retaining existing users; viral growth, which relies on users referring others; and paid growth, which involves spending money to acquire users.

Sustainability in growth means not overspending beyond your means. If your customer acquisition costs exceed the lifetime value of your customers, you risk running into financial trouble.

As a startup grows, the focus shifts from just acquiring users to ensuring sustainable growth and revenue. We learned the hard way that even if users love our product, we must also pay attention to our overall growth metrics to avoid becoming a beloved startup that fails due to lack of financial viability.

Be cautious with paid growth, as it can be risky; if you pay for users who don't generate enough revenue, you could run out of money.

It's a common mistake to assume that paid acquisition costs will remain constant; in reality, it often becomes more expensive to find and convert users over time.

Increasing ad spend to meet growth targets can backfire, as it often leads to longer payback periods for customer acquisition, making it harder to sustain growth.

Relying solely on paid acquisition for growth is risky. If your growth depends only on ads, it may not be sustainable in the long run, especially as competition increases.

The customer acquisition cost (CAC) must be lower than the revenue generated from a user to ensure sustainable growth.