April 14, 2025
May 22, 2025
(1/6): How to get from $1M to $10M ARR
There's a lot written about the $0 to $1M ARR journey. A lot less about the $1M to $10M journey - even though that's where lots of promising companies die. This is the 1st piece of a 6 part series.
pascal's notes
"When you get to $1M ARR, you don't need to build a $100M ARR company yet. You just need a segment of customers that's sufficiently large to get you to $10M."
This is part 1 of a 6 part deep dive on how to get from $1M to $10M ARR which is based on my discussion with Guillaume Jacquet, the co-founder of Vasco, his 2nd startup after selling his last one to Lightspeed Commerce (LSPD.TO) post Series B.
Narrow down your ICP
One of the most important things many get wrong right around the $1M mark: They expand their ICP focus rather than narrow it down.
This seems counterintuitive. Shouldn't you expand your market to increase revenue?
Reality is that narrowing your focus is usually the fastest path to scale to $10M.
Most founders resist narrowing as they fear excluding potential customers. But this fear actually impedes growth.
Why?
Not everyone that got you to $1M wants your product equally as much. Focusing on those that want it most significantly increases your efficiency.
With focus, marketing can target specific channels with tailored messages. Sales can become deeply knowledgeable about particular pain points. Onboarding can be streamlined for similar use cases. And so on.
Guillaume call this "finding your perfect grass-eating animal."
Imagine building a product for "animals." Too broad. "Mammals"? Still too broad. "Herbivores"? Getting better. "Grass-eating herbivores"? Now you're targeting a specific need. And when you narrow to "wild horses in North America," you suddenly know exactly where to find them, what they need, and how to serve them.
To start narrowing down, look for patterns among exiting customers who are power users / who implement quickly and enthusiastically. And / or survey them to find those who would be "very dissatisfied" if they could no longer use your product.
They clearly feel an urgent pain your product solves.
Getting to $10M doesn't require capturing your entire market - it requires deepening your penetration of a specific, winnable segment. Only after mastering one narrowly defined segment should you consider expanding.
The narrower your initial focus, the faster you'll scale to $10M.
