Archita Fritz on Fixing Growth in PE-Backed Companies: It’s About Basics, Not Blaming Marketing

In a recent LinkedIn post, Archita Fritz discusses a common, yet often overlooked, pitfall in Private Equity (PE)-backed companies struggling with growth. Fritz argues that the reflexive reaction to blame marketing or implement flashy new tools often misses the fundamental issues plaguing these businesses.

Fritz highlights a typical, albeit ineffective, approach:

“Revenue is flat.
Let’s change the Marketing Leader/CMO.
Let’s launch a big new campaign.
Let’s buy another AI tool.”

According to Fritz, while these actions might appear decisive in a board meeting, they rarely lead to substantive change in reality. The core problem, as Fritz points out, often lies not with “bad marketing” but with “broken BASICS.”

The Criticality of Foundational Elements

Archita Fritz contends that running a PE-backed company, despite its inherent pressures of capital, time constraints, and return targets, is not an insurmountable mystery. However, many companies fail to address the foundational elements necessary for sustained growth. Fritz identifies several key areas where portcos (portfolio companies) typically fall short:

Clarity of Offering

One of the most significant issues Fritz observes is a lack of clear communication regarding what the company actually sells. As Archita Fritz notes, asking multiple leaders within the organization often results in different answers. This internal ambiguity, Fritz argues, inevitably translates to customer confusion.

Scattered Focus and Ineffective Targeting

Another commonality Fritz identifies is the tendency to “chase anyone who might buy.” This broad approach, spanning all sizes, regions, and use cases, leads to busy calendars but minimal tangible results. Fritz suggests this unfocused strategy dilutes efforts and hinders genuine progress.

The Illusion of Prioritization

Fritz also critiques the phenomenon where everything becomes a “top priority.” When an organization designates ten critical projects simultaneously, the practical outcome is that none of them truly receive the focused attention needed to succeed. This diffusion of effort, according to Fritz, prevents meaningful wins.

Dashboard Over Customer Conversations

In Archita Fritz’s view, many PE-backed companies become overly reliant on dashboards and reports, neglecting direct interaction with their customer base. While data is important, Fritz emphasizes that an abundance of reports does not substitute for genuine conversations with the people who are actually paying for the product or service.

Suppression of Honest Feedback

Finally, Fritz points out a critical cultural issue: the absence of an environment where individuals feel safe to voice that something “isn’t working.” This leads to weak ideas persisting for extended periods, simply because they are associated with influential individuals. Fritz states:

“No one is allowed to say ‘this isn’t working’ So weak ideas live on for months because they belong to someone important.”

Fritz reiterates that these are not merely “marketing problems” but fundamental issues rooted in the basic operational and strategic clarity of the business. The solutions, according to Archita Fritz, lie in addressing this unglamorous, foundational work rather than pursuing complex or trendy strategies.

In the carousel accompanying her post, Fritz promises to break down each of these basic steps and offer practical solutions for PE-backed companies. Her post concludes by inviting readers to share other issues often misattributed to marketing problems in their own experiences.