Startups, $10M, and why Pittsburgh has so many damn bridges.

As a SaaS founder your life is milestones. Even if you don't acknowledge it in the day-to-day, you're always pushing for the next milestone to quantify your progress and also justify your actions.

Breaking $1M in SaaS revenue may sound common because you always hear the success stories of others, but the reality is that only 4% of startups ever do it. That means out of 1,000 entrepreneurs who start a business, only 40 will ever hit that benchmark. Even more overwhelming, only 4 will ever hit $10M in revenue.

So why is it you? Why is it me? Why is it anyone? ... Is it luck? Is it the perfect idea? It's a small piece of all of those, but in my blue-collared-raised lower middle-class experience, it's grind and execution.

You hear grind all the time, but what does that really mean? "Startup Grind is about people rallying together to reach out and help one another. It's about listening and learning from the successful and failed journeys. It's about ignoring all conventional wisdom and trusting your gut enough to do something simply because you believe in it."

Another take on both grind and execution is constantly absorbing data, using it to predict the future, and aggressively making decisions to get ahead of downside and exponentially investing in your upside.

The reality is that any solid founder with a good idea or a great sales foundation can get to $1M one way or another. It isn't easy, but getting there is only the first milestone. When you come to $2M you truly start to realize the reality of product market fit, and until this point this is all that matters. But after that, you are now challenged with scaling your product-market fit to prove that you have a real business and that you're able to take it to the next level. This is when investors really take notice for the first time.

So where now? Of course, it's up, but where and why? Those investors I just mentioned have analyzed your business (or you did it yourself if you're bootstrapped) about your next milestone. It's pretty cut and dry: $5M in revenue. At this point, you've scaled your operations beyond a good idea and founder capability, and you're on your way to potential large investments or even an exit if you want to get out early. The reason is that the investors (or strategic acquirers) at this point see the scalability and where it can go.

However, the goal is not $5M. You need to double again. The first $1M is the hardest, $2M to $5M is difficult, but doubling it to $10M will be just as hard as the first $1M. Why? Because you're building again. The scrappiness of the first was hard but it actually doesn't apply anymore. You need a team and structure to get to the next milestone. This is why you have a 90% failure rate at this stage. It's really hard.

At $10M you have an excitable business that likely has value to many different buyers and investors, in multiple applications. Only at this time will you ever consider shooting for the stars - anytime before that is a dream without reality (at least for most businesses, and assuming you're not a pre-revenue unicorn).

Now, what the hell does this have to do with the fact that Pittsburgh, PA, has 446 bridges? Think about when Pittsburgh started in 1758 and what happened in the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds. Forming a city near water was logical for many reasons: easier travel and transport, it provided necessary resources that were accessible at the time, and it was dynamic enough to create situations like the steal boom. This is exactly how SaaS startups are founded. You have the right pieces for an easy launch - no different than a small city. Now, fast forward a few hundred years, and you find yourself in the same spot that was so convenient originally, but now has the logistical hurdle of building bridges absolutely everywhere to keep up with demand. Startups are no different - we build bridges to connect and scale, but we need to be strategic about where we place them, calculate the cost of building them, and, most importantly, calculate the cost of maintaining them. You started building them at $2M but really invested at $5M and really felt the longer-term investment at $10M (on top of still building new ones to grow).

Most people would say "we have too many bridges, you're crazy to build more" but this is why .04% of people make it to $10M in revenue.

Find your river. Build your first bridge. Then, build 400 more. It's possible. It happens all around us, and the ones that aren't building them are the ones that will never cross the river.