A growth strategy where a company wins initial small contracts to establish a foothold with a customer, then expands the relationship over time through additional products or seats.
Deeper Explanation
Land and expand is the defining go-to-market model for enterprise software businesses. The initial "land" — typically a small pilot or departmental deployment — proves the product, builds institutional trust, and creates advocates within the customer organisation. The "expand" — growing from one team to enterprise-wide adoption, or cross-selling adjacent products — generates the high NRR that makes these businesses so valuable. This model produces low initial contract values but high lifetime values, making unit economics look poor in year one and outstanding over five years. Growth investors must assess expand rates, cross-sell attachment rates, and how deeply the product embeds into customer workflows.
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