I've wasted tens of thousands of dollars on fancy dashboards and business intelligence tools.

And they ALL break.
People stop trusting the data and using it altogether.

But I've seen $2M - $5M companies go to $10M - $20M after implementing one thing they can build in half a day…a CEO Dashboard.

Here’s how you can build one yourself 🧵 If you're firefighting in Slack and email, arguing with your teammates about feelings instead of facts, or running a business that relies on your heroics to scale...

You need to start actually thinking (and acting) like a real CEO.

I've scaled 8 companies to 8+ figures.

And I can tell you with certainty: The skills that got you to $1M will NOT get you to $10M.

In fact, if you keep playing the $1M game, you'll get stuck.

If you wanna stay UNSTUCK and move past 7-figures, you need 3 skills 🧵 Skill 1: Scoreboard-Based Leadership

Between $0 and $1M, you're running on gut feel. Checking Stripe. Making decisions based on vibes.

That works fine early on.

But at $10M, you can't lead by intuition anymore. You're not in every room.

You have to lead by the scoreboard.

I've scaled 8 companies to 8+ figures, and I can tell you with certainty that getting from $2M to $20M is the sweetest spot in business.

I've never been more profitable, more free, or had more fun than when I was running a $20M company.

Here are the 5 steps to get there:

🧵 Step 1: Double your average customer value

Look, if your unit economics are broken, scaling just makes you broke faster.

But the real reason you need this is you're going to need the margin to afford the leap from $2M to $20M.

3 plays to make it happen:

"What got you here won't get you there..."

...is so true it's become a cliche.

So, I decided to go beyond the cliche and study why companies actually stall out and fail to scale. Ultimately, it came down to 6 factors... /1 (a thread) 👇 Scale Constraint #1: Unclear, uninspiring, or misaligned VISION.

In other words, nobody cares about what you're doing or why you're doing it. /2

1/ Do you want to launch a modern media company?

Here's a thread breaking down how we're doing it at Scalable.co (and how I've done it at all my previous companies)... 2/ Everything starts with an audience-first property...usually a blog with an accompanying email newsletter and/or a podcast.

This property is monetized through premium content (courses, then subscriptions) and advertising (affiliate offers, then sponsored content/ads).

If I owned a large media company, I would be thrilled if my best writers launched their own blogs, @SubstackInc newsletters, and the like?

Here's why... 1/5 A media company is like a solar system with lots of little "planets" and "moons" orbiting around it.

Some of these "moons" grow so large and build up so much mass that they're able to break free from their orbit and become their own planet. 2/5

Here are (at least) 10 modern marketing commandments I wish someone would chisel in stone... 1. Thou shalt build revenue FIRST and brand SECOND. Brand matters, but the primary goal must be sales. It's possible to sacrifice brand at the alter of sales and still recover, but you cannot sacrifice sales at the alter of brand and hope to survive.