In every startup, there is a question every entrepreneur needs to face: To scale or not to scale?
People who want a lifestyle business are content to make the same, predictable sum year-to-year in one location. But for most of us, that’s not enough. We want to grow.
The problem is the vast majority of businesses in the U.S. fail to scale. Only 9% actually achieved greater than $1,000,000 in revenue. They simply run out of cash. They crumble under the wrong leaders. Or they were never able to make the right traction in the market. Or they didn’t understand how to scale the business.
You hear a lot online about 10x-ing your business, but the term has been so overused it has lost its true meaning. Instead, I like to say “scale in zeros,” meaning if you’re doing $100K in revenue, you have to start thinking of what gets you to $1 million. If you’re working with 10 distributors, think of what will get you to 100. If you’re in one city, think of what will get you into ten. If you start thinking this way, it will inform every decision you make along the way.
