Startup leaders, is your fear of change holding your company back?

A pattern I experienced myself and observed is that successful founders get stuck operating the same way they did at $500k ARR when they're at $5M ARR.

The fear of change makes perfect sense—with any measure of success, why would you want to change the behaviors that got you that success?

The challenge is the old saying: what got you here, won’t get you there.

You’re probably operating perfectly—for a $500k ARR company.

So the fear of change is compounded because what you’re doing is working!

But when you raise the bar and seek rapid growth, change is essential to scale through the critical inflection points that will allow your company to reach new heights.

Remember, a company that operates like a $500k ARR company is going to produce…$500k ARR.

Strategy, operations, and the biggest challenge—yourself and your behavior—all must change.

Instead, embrace change and expect it–it’s a sign of success and a hallmark of growth.

An advisor can be invaluable in helping you navigate these transitions and identify when it’s time to evolve yourself and your team to be the bigger company you want to be.

A big change in the way I operated was planning—in the beginning, we were pivoting and adapting constantly to find product market fit, and long term planning didn’t make much sense at all. In fact, it was probably the wrong thing to do at that size and stage.

However, as we grew, we needed to change the way we did strategic planning and executed on that plan to coordinate the larger team and accelerate the routines that could drive larger sales volume.

Our continued success just wouldn’t have happened if we were afraid to change the way we operated.