Want a real playbook for scaling without hiding behind a 90-day plan? We sit down with Stephen Rose, CEO of Render Networks, to unpack how he makes faster decisions without sacrificing rigor—grounding every move in customer conversations, employee insight, and hard data. From the brutal economics of fiber and utility builds to the messy reality of changing a go-to-market thesis, Stephen shows what it takes to steer a scale-up through real constraints.

We dig into the two levers that matter most in software—innovation and marketing—and why aligning those creates downstream momentum in sales and cost to serve. Stephen explains how he assesses leaders using pipeline health, conversion metrics, and employee engagement as a proxy for followership, then maps leadership skills to the company’s stage. The method is disarmingly practical: get individual feedback on a strategy thesis to reduce bias, bring the team into one room to synchronize context, and run a dynamic RevOps cadence so the org responds to signals in days, not quarters.

One standout story: entering the U.S. market with a transformative technology only to discover most buyers weren’t ready. Rather than force adoption, Stephen reoriented the product to meet current workflows, then designed a path to move customers forward. It cost time and money—and built long-term traction. We also explore how to empower the middle layer of management with clear guardrails, tie responsibility to accountability, and promote at 50% readiness to keep learning curves steep. If you’re scaling a product company, leading a transformation, or trying to turn engagement into execution, you’ll walk away with concrete steps you can use this week.

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