The Ten Commandments of Scale

Our win rate is unparalleled because we only take on firms set up for success

1. Your product works - we sell your offering and close new clients. Sales only works through confidence and belief. We kicked the “hopium” habit years ago. This is the number one thing most startups lack. It’s next to impossible to sell products that don’t solve core business needs or don’t exist in a ready to deploy way.

2. Your firm solves a massive problem and is designed to scale. The great thing about being a founder is you can decide what type of company you want. A boutique, lifestyle business is honorable. A firm grows through sales. Big growth requires a sizable market, pricing and product alignment with impactful client value and sales-focused leadership.

3. Your offering delivers a clear and demonstrable ROI - solving business needs is sustainable. There is a transparent and clear line from your offering to revenue created or saved or their isn’t. This is the second most common thing startups miss. The first 100 clients are the hardest to acquire, and taking a risk on new tech requires you to solve real pain.

4. Your product, UX and economic model is built with the end user/client as it's Northstar. No truly great product solves a problem at the expense of its users even if it makes paying clients happy. Firms fail to grasp that they must build products users actually want. Many firms think they know what users want and a founder often solves a problem they believe exists without validating it with the market. You are not your client. The market and client need dictates the value of your offering.

5. Your offering/firm has a profitable economic model or path to profitability - we do not believe in scale first, figure it our later. You have to make money, no exceptions. If you don’t make money with your model, start over now. Growth requires money to support. Clients will pay for products that deliver value.

6. Your firm and its product provide a net positive impact to society - We serve all industries. Hard problems in entrenched verticals inspire us. New ideas take root in business and industries through revenue. Solving big and boring problems is far more important that buzz.

7. Your company has incredible leadership in every department that understands scalable sales is the fastest path to growth. Good leaders are realistic and accepting of what they don’t know. We win when our clients win, that means the whole team has to want to win and is realistic about how that happens.

8. Your business is well funded to support and deliver on its objectives. Sales is the cheapest investment a firm can make. We love earning equity and will humbly decline any engagement where equity alone is offered. We love scrappy startups, and a passionate founding team with a dream is not a business. The third most common place where startups fail is believing an idea or product is a business and focus their efforts on fundraising instead of business building. A business gets funded not an idea.

9. An incredible culture of success and team support exists in all facets of your business. Scale requires leverage through talent. Technology changes fast, culture is what makes an organization last. At Pitchstack, my team tells me what to do. Get what you want instead of trying to own all things in your business. Leverage creates scale, and by cultivating talent you can focus on your highest value.

10. We can provide significant value through our efforts for the organization and our team members. We are grateful for our successes. Those successes have provided a chance to only work with firms that have the rare intersection of product, leadership and timing. We carefully choose who we work with so we can be of the greatest value. Ability to pay is not the same as the ability to scale.