Bob Ogwang

The IFC has a definition of what micro, small and medium enterprises look like based on revenue, employees and assets. If we simplify it and look only at revenue: $0–$100k: Micro $100k–$3M: Small $3M–$15M: Medium I think there is a useful lesson in those thresholds. Before $100k in annual revenue, your overwhelming priority should be simple: Get out of the micro-business category. You either Build or you Sell. It's that simple... Attend one or two conferences if that makes you feel better. Join a peer group or a training if you need friends to rant to. Put some basic systems in place if you need it for mental sanity. But and that's key, your North Star should be getting customers and pushing toward $100k in revenue. You have 10 customers, you probably don't need a "sales strategy". You need to go and find 10-20 more... At that point, your business is probably starting to become “real”. Once you're a small enterprise, the balance gradually starts shifting from getting more revenue toward building an organisation capable of handling that revenue. You now see patterns. That's what scale does... But even then, before $1M in sales, I'd argue you can probably half-ass a surprising amount of your systems with duct tape. Do you really need a 70-page HR manual when most of your employees are still the first people you hired? An ERP? Why? You probably have 20 transactions on a good day. A sophisticated OKR framework? Your team probably already knows what needs to get done. A beautiful pitch deck? A fancy website? Three days at a strategy retreat? Nah... Not before customers. The problems will come. You will see more patterns... That's what scale does. And I'd argue that you should solve those problems when they actually become problems, while remaining completely obsessed with your customers and finding those patterns. Hire HR when managing people starts breaking. Upgrade accounting when the spreadsheet becomes dangerous. Implement an ERP when operational complexity demands one. Create management layers when the founder is burning out... Don't build a $10M company's bureaucracy inside a $100k company. Somewhere around $1M in annual sales, I think something changes. Things get too messy for half-ass solutions. You, as the founder, are maxed out... That's when you probably need to start killing the hustler and removing the duct tape. Once you get out of the Small Enterprise category (post-3M in sales but like around $1M), the value of your business will almost be exclusively driven by the quality of your systems. A long post to say, your scale should drive your priorities... Scale --> Patterns --> Systematize with duct tape --> Systems break --> Fix them --> More Scale --> And the loop continues... That's it for today...