Scaling startups is a privilege, not a guarantee. If you’re at this phase in the startup lifecycle, you’re one of the few lucky ones.
Only around 10% of VC-backed businesses make it to the $1M ARR milestone, with less than 1% of startups achieving $10M ARR. Think about those stats for a minute. Building a successful startup is a damn hard journey for the few and is not a guarantee for the majority.
Yet we tend to spend most of our cycles studying and celebrating the outliers. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we pattern ourselves or measure ourselves this way? Because we all don’t need to be like them. Those paths truly aren’t blueprints. They are, just that, outliers.
Scaling a startup isn’t just about raising money, hiring fast, and pushing growth at all costs that won’t last. It isn’t about being a unicorn, decacorn or IPO worthy business. It’s about earning the right to scale by proving your business model works first. It’s about building a good, healthy company that makes an impact on society. It’s about reaching whatever mountain top you want, because success is relative.
I’ve seen too many startups go all-in on expansion before they truly understand their market, product, or customers. Growth for growth’s sake is a dangerous game, one that often leads to layoffs, pivots, or inevitable shutdowns. So many startups just run out of dollars and time as they try to be like someone else.
The reality? The skills needed to build an early-stage startup aren’t the same as those needed to scale it. Personal adaptation, operational discipline, and strategic decision-making become even more critical as you grow. Not all companies are created equal in idea, metrics or potential.
I’m one of the rare few who has lived all stages of the startup lifecycle in my career as an operator and investor: from genesis to $100M ARR to the ultimate monster strategic exit. I’ve even operated in a Fortune 50.
Guess what? It’s all hard work. Sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it sucks. It requires being loyal and playing the long game. Each phase requires different muscles and different DNA. It all requires mental fortitude.
Fast growth isn’t always the best growth. Sustainable, intentional growth wins in the long run.
So before you focus on scaling, make sure you’ve truly earned the privilege to do so, have a unique game plan for you, and a set of partners who can truly assist on the ride. It’s a fun one, if you play it right… just do it your way, in your context, and you’ll be just fine.
