How Steve Linowes helped scale a company to $1.4B

Learn how to find product fit, market clarity, and the systems that actually drive growth.

Author

Reade Milner
April 22, 2025

This 3-minute read brought to you by the team at Rogue Pin

In this issue, you'll learn:

Start with the product. Align the incentives.

Highlights from our recent conversation with Steve Linowes

Steve helped grow a company from $700M to $1.4B in four years—all organic growth.

He worked on the original launch of Internet Explorer.

He now advises digital health companies across the country.

But what stood out most in our conversation was his clarity around growth.

He doesn’t talk about growth as a marketing problem. He talks about it as a product and system problem. And he makes a compelling case for why startups and service businesses alike need to get this part right—early.

Below are the takeaways we keep coming back to.

A minimum viable product still needs to be viable

It’s easy to rush the launch.

But when the product isn’t solving the right problem, marketing can’t save it.

❝

You can have great marketing and a bad product, and you’ll still fail.

Steve Linowes

Steve’s advice: focus on solving a clear, specific problem—then strip everything else away.

The goal isn’t to ship something perfect. The goal is to deliver something valuable enough that a small group of users will care deeply about it.

You can’t grow into a market you haven’t defined

When founders say they’re targeting “healthcare” or “B2B,” they haven’t chosen a market. They’ve described a category.

“Don’t tell me you’re targeting healthcare. That’s not a market. That’s a hundred different industries.” – Steve

Real positioning starts by identifying specific buyers with a shared problem. The smaller and more focused your initial market, the easier it is to design the right message and deliver the right product.

“If you can describe your product in 5 words, your cost to market it drops dramatically.”

This isn’t about oversimplifying—it’s about removing ambiguity.

Growth follows aligned incentives

Misaligned incentives slow everything down.

Steve talked about how innovation in healthcare has actually led to negative growth because the incentives don’t reward efficiency.

The exceptions are self-funded employers.

They have a financial stake in improving outcomes and reducing costs, and they have decision-making control to implement solutions quickly.

“Self-funded employers are one of the few segments with aligned incentives to innovate.”

This insight extends beyond healthcare.

When you’re building or selling into any industry, the fastest traction will come from the people who have the most to gain from your success—and the authority to act on it.

Systems don’t need to be complex. They need to be clear.

Steve sees a lot of startups overbuild early: $500K platforms, elaborate dashboards, and big vision decks before they’ve solved a real-world problem.

“Focus on the problems at hand. Keep one eye on the future, but don’t build for six months out.” – Steve

The same is true with internal operations.

Teams don’t need hierarchy. They need structure.

“Your team doesn’t need a pyramid. They need a set of rails they can run with.”

He compared it to how Burning Man works.

It’s not a free-for-all. It’s a decentralized system with clear boundaries—allowing for creativity, ownership, and order at the same time.

Final takeaway

The best leaders don’t try to do everything at once.

They start with a clear product, find a small but meaningful market, and stay focused on who benefits most from the outcome.

“You can do good and do well at the same time.” – Steve

If you’re thinking about how to grow more intentionally—start here:

  • Validate the product

  • Focus the message

  • Align with the people who care most

Everything else can be built from that.

It’s 35 minutes of sharp insights for anyone building a company or leading growth inside one.