Thread by @jasonlk

The #1 thing that will stop you after $4m-$5m is burn-out

It’s not competition
It’s not market change
It’s not VC funding

Almost any founder who’s crossed it will tell you that

It’s not enough to “take care of yourself”, although of course that matters.

Take your vacations. Unwind as much as you can on the weekends, etc. Join peer groups.

But the only answer to burn-out is hiring a great management team

This is job #1, #2, and #3 after $1m ARR

A truly great management team solves for all other problems once you have Initial Traction, just a few million in ARR:

- they out innovate the competition
- they outsell the competition
- they close the feature gaps that matter
- they get your NPS up, and churn down

In fact, if you have truly happy customers, even maybe just 100 of them ..

There’s almost no hole you can’t dig yourself out of with a strong enough team in SaaS

The revenue recurs, after all

But if you try to dig yourself out without enough help ... you never get there

So next time you’re reading TechCrunch, & you see some startup you admire selling for decent-but-not-huge amount after say 4-5 years in ...

The story is this:

The founders were great visionaries, but just didn’t recruit a strong enough management team

And they got burnt out

A related post here:

saastr.com/10-tips-avoid-…