Growth Slowed? Try Micro-Milestones To Push Through Tougher Times

I’ve seen other great founders move to micromilestones when they have 50, 100, 200 customers, and high NPS … but only OK growth for now. Because you’ll get there. You’ll iterate the product. You’ll add more value. You’ll drive up the deal size, and expand the offering. And improve the team. But you can’t do all of that overnight.


I’ve also now seen the opposite — so many founders that just give up on goals in tougher times. They abandon a plan at all, and/or constantly reset it down, multiple times a year, or just plain hide from any real goals. I’ve never seen that work.

Some other successful micromilestones I’ve seen:

Going from 10 to 20 customers. Then 20 to 40. And then 40 to 100 customers. I love this one in the early days. 10 customers may only be enough money to pay for a few lunches. But going from 10 to 20 customers will double your team’s knowledge of the market. And 20 to 40 will do the same. So maybe make doubling customers in the early days a micromilestone. You can get there soon enough — and get a free team education while you go.

Revenue under management. This one only really works with fintech or revenue management-related products. But the team gets excited when you manage $100m in revenue. Even if that’s only $500k in ARR to you.
$100k in Bookings A Month. Then $250k. Etc. Picking a new “high water mark” for bookings in a month is a great way to align the team, even if the month-over-month growth isn’t Slack-like yet. If you closed say, $60k last month, set a micromilestone of $100k. You’ll get there at some point.
Paying Customers. I did a bit of this, too, see above. But growing your customer number can be a way to get the team excited, even if many are small, or come and go, or downgrade, etc.

MAUs, DAUs, etc. I don’t totally love these B2C-like metrics, but they can help keep the team engaged. After all, the more folks that use your product, all things being equal, ultimately the more folks that will buy it. Seeing strong growth in usage can show folks the light.

Driving NPS Up to a Key Number/Goal. Driving NPS up to say, 50 can inspire the team to improve everything. This will benefit revenue. Even if it takes a little while, or even, a longer while.

New bookings — But Just from Existing Customers. If new logo bookings slow a bit, you often at least know how to make your existing customers happier. And then you can just go ask them what you can do to earn more business. Tracking an Upsell Goal that might be easier to achieve than an overall ARR goal can help the team sometimes through a tougher patch. I.e., maybe you can add $500k in revenue from the existing base in the next 6 months. That can be an effective micromilestone for the team to rally around.

In the end, to build something big, at some point, you do have to grow like crazy. But you don’t have to on Day 1. It took Slack several years until it morphed into … Slack. The fastest growing company I’ve invested in so far, Talkdesk — 4 years from seed to Unicorn — had almost no revenue in its first 18 months. Once you have something — some real revenue — your job is to hold the team together until you all really figure the engine out. That can take quite a while.

Micromilestones can help focus the team on achievable goals in tougher times.
Then leave them behind later when you have a real engine humming.