The 10-100-1000 Sales Plan for Startups
Balancing the challenges of simultaneously acquiring customers and investors...
One of the most persistent challenges startup teams face is figuring out how to build meaningful traction while securing the funding required to get off the ground and scale. This chicken-and-egg dilemma isn’t new - to generate revenue, you need money to find and support customers...but to get money, you need revenue.
The good news is that it can be done!
Over the years I've had to tackle this conundrum many times. After some prodding from a few colleagues I decided to publish this particular framework in the hopes that it helps a least a few early-stage companies struggling to get their companies off the launchpad.
The solution lies in developing a parallel-path sales strategy that aligns with your funding goals and milestones. Instead of growing purely opportunistically (aimlessly) or fundraising without a compelling story, the 10-100-1000 framework gives you a clear path to build credibility, gain traction and scale smartly, all while establishing yourself in the market.
Why the 10-100-1000 Framework Works
Investors and customers may look for different evidence that you are real, but nonetheless both want to see credible proof. Customers want to see examples of a real, working solution to THEIR problem. Investors want to see that your startup is gaining traction in a reliable, systematic and scalable manner.
The 10-100-1000 model balances those demands through three phases of growth in an early-stage venture:
LAND your first 10 customers
EXPAND to your first 100 customers
SCALE to 1,000 customers and beyond
Each phase develops the confidence, credibility and insight that you need to move on to the next. First, it also generates the success stories / case studies needed to win other customers. Second, it sets up the feedback loops that lead to a more robust product / service. Third and finally, it proves to investors (and other stakeholders, e.g. team members) that you're viable and scalable.
BTW, 10, 100 & 1,000 are somewhat arbitrary numbers. They are intended to establish an order of magnitude that represents a growth curve that is viable and fundable. Depending upon your industry it could be 100-1000-10000 or 3-9-27, etc.
LAND: Get Your First 10 Customers
Your first 10 customers are your most critical, but in many ways they’re often the easiest to obtain. They are very likely going to be those that believe so much in you that the product is almost irrelevant. They trust you and in turn your team, have confidence that you understand their "pain", and are willing to take a chance - even if the product isn’t perfect.
Who Are They?
People you’ve worked with previously.
Warm or first-degree connections in your network.
Individuals or businesses with a high level of pain and willingness to experiment.
Partners looking for competitive advantage who want to co-develop or pilot a new solution.
These are your foundational relationships, essential for early traction, validation and feedback. In this phase make sure to focus on high levels of engagement rather than high volumes of opportunities…quality over quantity.
Marketing Tactics
Participate - participate in all available conversations on social media, industry forums, etc. Remain stealthy…don’t share what you are doing, only your expertise. Make people want your value but don’t share how you’re going to provide it yet.
Share - share the wealth in terms of market data, industry news & events, key insights shaping the future of your market, but again, not what you’re doing specifically. Create some intrigue.
Build Relationships - be present not only online but at conferences, trade shows, etc. Connect with people whose “pain” resonates most closely with your solution and spend time truly understanding there issues.
Sales Tactics
Ask for Feedback, Not a Sale - position yourself as seeking insight, not pushing product. Information and relationships are more valuable than revenue in this stage.
Be Flexible - consider free trials, steep discounts, or “founding customer” pricing, whatever works for the customer and gives you the best chance to secure the “success story”.
Make the Customer a “Co-creator” - base the experience on ensuring the best possible solution. Be careful, however, that changes you make are applicable to all users, present and future.
Build momentum - one conversation leads to the next - networking, consultation & validation, not traditional revenue generation at this stage.
Why This Matters for Investors
Early-stage investors are looking for proof that you have a viable, competitive solution to a real problem that has substantial economic value. Even a few engaged customers who’re testing and/or using your product signal that there’s something real behind your pitch. Testimonials, usage data, and honest feedback go much further than pitch decks with projections.
Just remember, these first 10 probably look nothing like the customers that will follow and/or scale with you. They are buying you more than the solution, a script that flips in the next two phases.
EXPAND: Sell 100 Real Customers
Once you’ve landed your first 10 customers, your job is to prove your product is truly “market ready” and that your team can acquire customers consistently - even outside your warm network. This is the repeatability phase, and it’s essential for both customer acquisition and your fundraising story.
Who Are They?
These are HIGHLY TARGETED customers, as tightly aligned with your ICP as possible. You can’t afford to waste time on prospects who aren’t highly motivated to solve the problem that led to the creation of your solution. Other details:
They have limited personal connection to your founding team
They have moderate-to-high risk tolerance but will be be less forgiving of product flaws than your 10
They will respond more to evidence than enthusiasm
They expect measurable ROI and relatively smooth onboarding
Marketing Tactics
Network, Network Network - Focus heavily on expanding your network wherever possible to create more relationships and centers of influence. The basis of these new relationships should continue to be related to the “pain” you alleviate with your solution.
Begin to Share - Quietly share successes publicly (website, social media, etc.) without overselling or providing too much detail. Talk about impact not products/services/solutions.
Contribute - Add to the base of knowledge in your market via panels, webinars or social media posts to demonstrate thought leadership. Become the expert in your world.
Sales Tactics
Start Prospecting - it’s time to start to build a pipeline from leads through opportunities. Time must be dedicated every day to reaching out to potential customers.
Develop a Sales Process - whether you use a spreadsheet or a CRM, start to track your leads and opportunities and develop your scripts.
Formalize Pricing, Terms & Conditions, etc. - you should being to get a handle on the ROI generated by your solutions and price accordingly, and define the T&C that will govern these and future relationships.
Partnerships
At this stage, strategic partnerships will start to become important. They can provide additional resources without expense, have relationships and can increase your reach, sometimes dramatically. Look for:
Consultants who serve your audience
Service providers with complementary offerings
Communities or platforms willing to co-market with you
Why This Matters for Investors
Getting to 100 customers shows proof of repeatability - a key requirement for seed or Series A rounds. It also represents a scale of activity, from sales to operations, that is measurable to determine KPIs and competitive relevance. Ultimately, it demonstrates that your growth isn’t based on personal relationships alone and that there’s a real market demand for your solution.
SCALE: Reaching 1,000 and Beyond
Once you’ve reached the 100-customer milestone, you’re no longer experimenting with product-market fit. You’re selling real solutions to real customers and have become a “real company”, and it’s time to scale.
Scaling is a completely different animal from the first two phases of growth. It requires processes, systems, people and money, all of which have to come together quickly and efficiently to continue to build momentum. Other measures of a company ready to scale:
You have a well defined product and product roadmap
You have customer personas clearly defined and targeted
Roles and responsibilities are becoming more clearly defined in an organization that now has employees and not just founders
KPIs have been established and are being measured to ensure that growth is efficient
You have or are close to securing funding
Marketing Tactics
Targeted Outreach - leverage databases like ZoomInfo, Seamless.ai, RocketReach, etc. to develop larger scale target lists for email and direct sales outreach
Automated Campaigns & Ads - leverage marketing automation tools to put your value proposition in front of large quantities of highly targeted buyers
Leverage Social Media - get loud, about your market, the problems you solve, the successes you have and be proud of the things you’ve accomplished
Thought Leadership - be everywhere, physically and digitally, demonstrating your expertise and your value to your market - write and talk, talk and write!
Sales Tactics
Dedicated Sales Team - someone has to now have one job - reaching prospects and developing opportunities, all day, every day
Systems & Activity KPIs - activities lead to deals…e.g. prospecting develops leads, leads filter down into opportunities, opportunities become customers…all of which activities must be measured and managed
Processes & Playbooks - what works is being codified and documented to prepare to expand the team, onboarding new team members quickly and efficiently
Partnerships
Partnerships will now become a channel of distribution, an extension of your sales team critical to the development of a substantial pipeline. As before, the partnerships will come in the form of other value-added service providers who work with your target customers providing complementary products and services. At this stage, partnerships will need to be more formal and structured, for example:
Formal Agreements - terms have to be in place, codifying the relationship in a manner conducive to developing a mutually beneficial business
Structure - different incentives, margins, etc. for different levels of commitment and/or performance
Management - an agreed upon process for developing and managing opportunities and relationships in a manner that is mutually beneficial (real, profitable $$$ for both you and the partner).
Why This Matters for Investors
At this point, you're demonstrating proof of scalability, not just to 1,000 but beyond. The metrics that are developing prove what is possible on all levels, from revenue generation to operational capability & capacity. They prove the economic viability and potential for the venture to be able to calculate a return on investment.
Don’t forget, especially at this stage, that you, as a founder, are an investor too, and all the math these investors are doing is math you should be doing for your self.
Final Thoughts: Getting There From Here
Many startups burn up too early, and unnecessarily. They fail to prove viability sufficient to attract investors and exhaust their resource base (financial and human) because they don’t balance their efforts between product development and customer acquisition. Or, they succeed in securing one or two rounds of financing but don’t balance their expenditures between product development, operations and customer acquisition.
At the end of the day, it’s about balance. A good gut check to employ to maintain this balance is to ask yourself about every expenditure does it satisfy one or more of the following.
Does this make the product better?
Does it attract customers?
If the answer is no, it’s probably a B-priority expenditure….