Never get these 3 growth stages out of order.

When I’m growing a venture to its first 10M in revs …

I never get these 3 growth stages out of order.

It's what I've done for my own ventures. It's what we do in the Venture Studio.

It’s how we can generate much revenue before we fund to scale.

These are the 3 growth stages that I follow, religiously.

Stage 1 - Taking the planning and preparation time to build out my business thesis and brand. I use lean business canvas as my framework for the model.

Stage 2 - Once I launch, I have 2 objectives …

- Product-Market Fit. The market buys into the way I have positioned, priced, marketed and am selling my product/service.

- Paying myself really well. I always build out a model that pays me (the founder) really well BEFORE I go into the stage of scaling.

Stage 3 - Scaling (possibly funding)

- Scaling my venture for growth, reaching my first 10M in revenue.

>> If I can’t pay myself really well in Stage 2, that means I messed up in Stage 1.

When a founder doesn’t get paid well, they seek funding prematurely and lose too much equity because they are desperate.

I generally bootstrap to my first 5M.

Here’s a list of famous ventures that bootstrapped FIRST, before they took in funding.

Apple
GoPro
Dell
Spanx
Mailchimp
GitHu
Shutterstock
TechSmith
Basecamp

Just sayin'

-Gerald