I had an interesting interview conversation this week about ecommerce growth. The owner mentioed the marketing spend and then we discussed approaches to growth – which led on to my approach to blockers to growth and having a KPI led apporach which clearly highlights “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”
At one point I mentioned that proprietary tech stacks can sometimes create constraints to growth — particularly when they slow down experimentation, integrations, or conversion optimisation – which they wanted to focus on (despite not having enough traffic for CRO to be meaningful).
In the end … it was not to be primarily as the owner was note sure “my approach would sit well with the incumbent developer of the proprietary tech”.
It highlighted two very different approaches to building a growth plan.
Option 1: Reverse engineer growth around the current structure
This approach starts with the existing team and technology and builds the growth plan within those boundaries. The thinking is simple: work with the current developer skillsets, operate within the limits of the current platform, and design the roadmap around what the team can realistically deliver.
In practice this often means experimentation happens more slowly, tooling and integrations are limited, and optimisation is constrained by what the platform can support. Growth tends to rely more heavily on paid acquisition and incremental improvements rather than structural change.
The business may still improve — but typically in small, incremental steps.
Option 2: Identify the blockers and build the plan from there
This approach starts with the growth ambition first.
From there, you look at what might prevent the business from achieving it — whether that’s technology limitations, conversion friction, customer experience gaps, product range issues, or operating model constraints.
Once those blockers are clear, the growth plan is built around removing them. That might mean evolving the tech stack, introducing new capabilities, improving processes, or changing how teams operate. In this model, the roadmap is shaped by what the business needs in order to scale — not just by what the current setup happens to allow.
Driving a growth strategy purely around existing developer skillsets or internal resources rarely creates step-change growth. At best it creates incremental progress – and with a proprietary stack – more legacy code and bloat.
Real ecommerce growth usually comes from improving the whole commercial system — customer acquisition, conversion rate, merchandising, CRM and retention, and technology that enables fast experimentation.
Sometimes that means challenging the current setup.
Not because something is wrong — but because removing constraints is often where the biggest growth unlocks sit.
And occasionally, interviews are a reminder that not every business is looking for that kind of thinking.