A little over a week ago I moderated a panel at Growth Jam, the full-day workshop experience we co-host for startup founders.

The themes the panel kept returning to weren’t startup problems, they were leadership, growth, and momentum problems. I see these same issues every week inside mid-sized companies navigating the pressures of AI, shifting customer expectations, and competing internal priorities.

You may not be a scrappy founder juggling payroll and product features, but you’re navigating the same landscape.. and the questions we explored last Thursday apply just as much to leaders of mid-sized companies as they do to early-stage teams.

Here are the 9 biggest themes that stood out and why they matter for mid-sized companies.

One of the strongest points from the panel came from Fraser Ellard from Dodeka Digital, who said AI should scale creativity not be a substitute for it. Inside mid-sized companies, AI introduces a different kind of risk.. leaders start handing over thinking instead of repetitive work. The result is low-quality outputs and disconnected experiences that dilute brand trust. AI should accelerate expertise not weaken it. The question for leaders to ask, “Where’s AI increasing quality, and where’s it quietly eroding it?”

One panelist cautioned that jumping to automating stuff that isn’t proven creates operational drag, not efficiency. This hits especially hard for mid-sized companies that already struggle with legacy systems, overlapping tools, and process debt. If a workflow isn’t validated/proven, automation will just scale your dysfunction. Start with what’s already effective, consistent, and repeatable. Small wins beat complex automation every time.

Another panelist shared how he uses AI as a research engine to get alignment on three fundamentals.. who you are, who you serve (i.e., your target customer or ideal customer profile.. ICP), and what problem you’re actually solving for them.

This applies even more to companies with a bunch of teams, multiple products, and a variety of competing priorities. Misalignment is crazy expensive. It drains budget, confuses your customers, and punches momentum in the face. AI can help you speed toward clarity, but it can’t choose it for you.

Focus on clarity.

This theme resonated with everyone in the room. Every company wants to streamline, every leader wants to remove friction, but not every moment should be efficient. Never automate the human moments. In your business this might be onboarding, or customer support, or renewals. It’s not enough to map the journey.. you need to map the moments that matter and keep them human/unique/memorable.

When a campaign, product launch, or channel underperforms, most teams do one of two things. Rip everything apart or blame someone/something. One panelist reminded us to separate messaging problems from product problems from channel problems. Inside a mid-sized organization this is leadership work. Teams rarely see the full picture so leaders have to help them break the problem into pieces, not burn the whole thing down.

Blair Primis from OrthoCarolina offered one of the cleanest frames of the entire morning, “Operational excellence, then leadership marketing. In that order.”

Said differently, if the experience for your customers is trash.. it doesn’t matter how good your marketing is. Your growth will hit a brick wall.

You can spend millions on ads, paid media, etc. You can staff an entire brand studio or in house marketing team.. but if the experience is inconsistent or broken, no campaign or creative can save it.

Marketing amplifies what’s true, it can’t manufacture what isn’t.

Founders often hire too early and mid-sized companies often hire too broadly. The lesson is the same. Don’t add headcount without clarity and don’t outsource without a clear role and don’t throw a marketer into a role that requires a growth strategist, a product partner, or someone to streamline your revenue (aka “RevOps”).

Hiring isn’t necessarily a shortcut, it’s typically an investment in repeatability/scale.

Blair used a simple metaphor: “You don’t build a house by decorating the walls first.” Inside mid-sized teams, activity is everywhere. More campaigns, more projects, more requests, more meetings, more stuff in the backlog.. but alignment is scarce.

Activity creates a bunch of noise. True, actual philosophical alignment between teams creates a ton of momentum. If everyone’s pointed towards the same goals/north star, you’ll get massive traction.

Leaders have to protect alignment as a strategic asset.

One of the most meaningful moments came when Rachel Malone from UpRight Growth said, “No one is thinking about you as much as you’re thinking about yourself.” It’s true for brands too. The companies that will win/are winning in this AI era aren’t the ones with the most polished content. They’re the ones with the most believable stories that feel human. The ones whose people show up with clarity and conviction.

Customers buy the story first and buy the product second.

Here are 10 ways leaders at mid-sized companies can start to apply these things in their org:

The more I work with mid-sized teams, the more convinced I am that the companies that win the next decade will be the ones that combine two things. Intelligent systems and unmistakably memorable/unique/differentiated human experiences. Team/company alignment sharpens and focuses the work while AI accelerates the work. Operational excellence grounds the work while your people bring the heart.

Growth isn’t about doing more, it’s about choosing better and choosing better requires clarity at every layer of the organization.

Onward & upward,
Drew

P.s. If we haven’t met yet, hello! I’m Drew Burdick, Founder and Managing Partner at StealthX. We work with brands to design & build great customer experiences that win. I share ideas weekly through this newsletter & over on the Building Great Experiences podcast. Have a question? Feel free to contact us, I’d love to hear from you.