Let’s be honest. “Discovery” can sound like a vague consulting buzzword. At Growth, it is anything but. Discovery is where set the engagement up for success by making sure we are solving the right problems before we start building anything.
This phase is designed to help everyone get on the same page. Your team, our team, leadership, operators, and the systems in between. The goal is simple: no surprises later.
Discovery Starts With Alignment, Not Software
Before touching HubSpot or any other tool, Growth focuses on alignment. Many teams come to us knowing something is broken, but not everyone agrees on what success should look like once it is fixed. Discovery is where we work through that together.
We ask questions that pull people out of day-to-day firefighting and into longer-term thinking. What would make this feel like a win three months from now? Six months from now? A year from now? Getting clear on those answers early makes everything that follows easier, faster, and far more effective.
Getting a Real Picture of How You Work Today
Discovery is about how processes actually work, not how they are supposed to work.
We spend time understanding your current tools, workflows, and handoffs. That includes the manual steps, the workarounds, and the “we just know how to do it” moments that never quite make it into documentation. These details matter because they often explain why systems feel frustrating or why reporting feels unreliable.
By grounding discovery in reality, we avoid building solutions that look great on paper but fall apart in practice.
Reverse Demos: Show Us, Don’t Just Tell Us
One of the most valuable parts of discovery is the reverse demo. Instead of us demoing software to you, you walk us through your current systems and processes.
This gives us a front-row seat to how work actually flows from start to finish. We see where things slow down, where data gets messy, and where teams rely on manual effort to keep things moving. These insights are hard to capture through conversation alone and make a huge difference in the quality of what we build.
Making Sure the Right People Are in the Room
Great discovery depends on hearing from the people closest to the work. During this phase, Growth helps identify who needs to be involved and when. That might include team leads, subject matter experts, operations partners, or technical stakeholders.
Clarifying roles early keeps projects moving and prevents late-stage surprises. It also ensures that decisions are made with the right context and that the final solution works for the people who will use it every day.
Turning Discovery Into Something Tangible
As discovery progresses, we document what we learn. That might mean mapping workflows, outlining requirements, or visualizing handoffs between teams. These artifacts help everyone see the same picture and make informed decisions together.
This documentation does not disappear once implementation starts. It becomes a reference point for the build phase and a useful resource for your team long after the project wraps.
Data and Integrations, Without the Headaches Later
If your project involves data migrations or integrations, discovery goes deep here. We look at what data exists, how clean it is, and how much of it truly needs to move. We also examine how often systems need to sync and which data points actually drive reporting and decisions.
Spending time on this upfront helps avoid delays, unexpected complexity, and long nights during implementation. It also leads to cleaner systems that are easier to maintain over time.
Aligning Before Anything Gets Built
Discovery wraps with a moment of alignment. This is where we confirm what we learned, what we are building, and what falls outside the current scope. Everyone leaves with a shared understanding of priorities, constraints, and next steps.
This step is critical. It reduces rework, builds confidence, and ensures implementation starts on solid ground rather than assumptions.
What You Can Expect to Walk Away With
By the end of discovery, clients typically have:
- Clear goals tied to measurable outcomes
- A shared understanding of current workflows and pain points
- Defined requirements for systems, data, and reporting
- Confidence in the plan moving forward
More than anything, discovery should leave you feeling heard, understood, and excited about what comes next.
Why Growth Takes Discovery Seriously
Skipping or rushing discovery almost always creates problems later. Growth invests time upfront so implementation can move faster, smoother, and with fewer surprises. The result is quicker time to value and solutions that teams actually enjoy using.
If you are considering Growth, expect discovery to be thoughtful, collaborative, and occasionally challenging in a good way. It is designed to set you up for success, not just for launch, but for everything that comes after.
Photo by Zdeněk Macháček on Unsplash.
