What Should You Focus On To Grow Your Startup From $0 To $1M/Year?

“I don’t care about the number of customers we have, I care about revenue!” “Raul,” one of our investors, screamed at me during the closed session of one of our board meetings. I had just finished showing the growth in our customers.

We had grown to 179 paying customers in our first year, and we were well on our way to getting over 1000 paying customers in our second year. But Raul, well, it was just another day in the life of dealing with him.

Picture: Depositphotos

I just grit my teeth, and continued on with the rest of the presentation. Raul, who was the cofounder of one of the most successful companies in our industry, knew how the Analog model worked.

Raul knew, because he was cofounder of a very successful Analog company, that the model is similar to a SaaS company because there is lots of recurring revenue. That’s the beauty of the business model; when you win a piece of business, you’re in for the duration of the customer’s project.

So, why was Raul upset if we were doing what we were supposed to do? It goes to the paradox of building a SaaS like business:

You have to be patient when you’re building a SaaS business.