A founder I advise just sent their annual 2021 investor report today.
They grew from $1.8M ARR to almost $5M ARR this year.
This means the value of the company more than doubled too. I’m a happy investor in this software company.
They are firing on all cylinders, hiring fast, drafting off of big market trends, fending off competition, landing big partnerships, and overcoming major obstacles every month.
Here’s what they are not doing:
1) They aren’t raising money.
They have been efficiently funded from angels and founder savings. Now they are customer funded with growing revenues.
They aren’t trying to raise big funding even though that would be easy now.
2) They aren’t expanding their target customer focus.
They are narrowing their focus even more.
Every time they narrow their focus to only target customers with specific characteristics that work best, they grow faster.
They have a clear profile of an ideal customer that gets great value, has the lowest churn rate, and buys more from them.
Their current target is about 5% of the big market they started serving 5 years ago, but they could be a $100M business faster by only servicing this narrow target.
3) They aren’t hiring anyone who doesn’t fit their culture.
They have tried to hire outside their core values and it has never worked.
4) They aren’t adding product features for anyone outside of their ideal target customer.
Product power is accelerating their growth.
This is a business that started 6 years ago. After early traction, revenues didn’t grow much for 3 years while they tested, improved, and kept fighting the fight.
Their persistence and savvy are paying off.
It looks like an overnight success, but it’s the opposite of that.
The founder is one of the smartest people I know, but their grit when things get really hard is their real superpower.
It is awesome to work with this founder and help their company grow efficiently.
#productmarketgrit
#keepgoing
