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I used to think that the scale was almost growing: more customers, more income, more markets. But over time, I realized that nobody tells you from the beginning: you can’t climb a company unless you are willing to climb.
In all the companies that I have helped to build, where we were chasing our first million or pushing one billion fasting, I fit one billion, I have found the same truth: growth does not come in a clean line. It comes in thresholds. And in each one, the old rules break.
That is when it contracts against: the same instincts, habits and systems that promoted the early impulse can begin to create drag in silence. What once worked well now can start working against him.
This is the paradox that most businessmen lose. We assume that the scale is about acceleration. Actually, it is reinvention. On each growth threshold, a company exceeds its own skin, and the founder has to grow just as fast.
Related: the 4 greatest mistakes make companies by climbing their business
From the idea to execution: $ 0 to $ 1m
In the earliest phase, ideas are fluid and fragile. Nothing is blocked, not its product, not its market and definitely not its brand. That is Real at this stage is your team. Who is in the trenches with you? Who is building next to you when there is no income, no guarantee or a roadmap?
When I founded Brightplan, it was intentional about assembling a central team that brought strengths that I did not possess. I greatly leaned on Saas veterans and the minds of products that could work quickly and think clearly under pressure. In a zero to one stage, the team is The strategy.
Forget perfection. Be prepared to fail quickly and adapt quickly. What you need at this point is the impulse. And if your early team cannot pivot, stretch and challenge each other, it will not matter how promising the product is: it will stop before takeoff.
From the product market adjustment to the strategic approach: $ 1m at $ 10m
If the first threshold is about survival, the second is about alignment. You have traction. Customers are buying. Investors begin to show interest. And there it is exactly when the next set of dangers is dragged.
This is where capital enters the equation, and where I have seen more false steps than almost any other phase. The founders, eager to maintain the impulse, take the sheet of the first term without stopping to understand their implications. Then, one day, they wake up with a partner whose goals, expectations or control terms create more friction than fuel.
We avoid that trap when being deliberate. We prioritize investors in form on speed, looking for partners who bring not only capital but also context, people who could press our thinking, open doors and stay in the game when it becomes difficult. Not only capital suppliers, but true partners.
At this stage, everything is tense: its positioning, its hiring, its decision making. What worked to the growth point of $ 1m can now begin to enter drag. To continue growing, not only needs focus: you need discipline to put aside good ideas and even people at the service of greats.
Related: how to sail to the next phase of your business: 3 tips as scale
From Hustler to Operator: $ 10m at $ 100m
This is the turning point. The company is no longer a startup, but it is not a company either. You are growing, but growth is no longer victory. The question is: can you climb? as You work, not only that You deliver?
This was the phase in which I had to evolve more as a leader. He was no longer the predetermined decision maker in each room, and that was by design. We brought experienced operators to have products, operations and finance. The people who had the scale and had the play books, and the experience gained with effort to try it.
Taking a step back does not mean getting away. It means building an organization that can work without you in the center. Most companies stop here not because they are left without vision, but because they try to climb the chaos. You can no longer advance with Hustle. At this stage, the structure becomes its new advantage.
And then it is the human side. You realize that some of the people who were perfect for the $ 1M sprint may not be suitable for the $ 50 million structure. Letting some of the leg from the first day, some who helped build the plane while flying, that is not just a difficult decision. That is a heartbreaking moment. But leadership means being honest about whether loyalty is becoming a responsibility, for them and for the company.
From climb to reconstruction for the scale: $ 100m+
Cross in nine figures forces another change of identity. You are no longer a rapid growth startup. You are a complex organization with global visibility and operational severity. And what led you to this point will break absolutely if you try to execute it in the same way.
In Brightplan, we anticipate this. We automate and subcontract anything that was not our differentiation (compliance, finance, legal workflows) so that we could stay thin and receptive as complexity increased. That adaptability was Lauck. It was designed.
But this phase is not only technical, it is personal. You start to face the invisible weight of the legacy. That report structure that created three years ago? Now it is a bottleneck. That flow of products you do by hand? It has become a responsibility. You build where you were, but now you are in another place.
This is where the reinvention ceases to be optional. And as before, you are called to go or systems, even parts of your own role. Climbing this phase is less about adding and more about clarifying what no longer belongs.
Leading through the thresholds
Each growth phase is a change of identity, for the company and for the founder. At first, you are the driver and visionary of everything. So, you are the strategic decisive. Then, the systems builder. And at all times, the cultural architect who must boost the future of the business without covering its advantage.
What left all thesis roles? The will to evolve before the business forces him to do so. Perpetually interrupt or support being interrupted. That is the real way to unlock success.
Technology, especially AI, only sharpens this need. Accelerate the deadlines, change the way we work and redefine the scale itself. But it does not erase the transitions. You still need an adaptable architecture. You still need a team that can climb with integrity. And you still need courage to make difficult calls at every step.
Related: Scale your leadership skills as your company scale
Growth is a series of thresholds, not a straight line
The largest myth in entrepreneurship is that the scale is a linear process. That is not. It is a reinvention ladder. And the companies that reach the top are not the fastest. They are the ones who know when it is time to stop, rebuild and then.
I have come to believe that the most scalable companies are whose leaders evolve just before the business, not behind it. If you can see the next threshold, and start becoming the leader who will require the phase, he has already won half of the battle.
Because in the end, the scale does not reward Bold.
Reward to the agile.