I’m creating the next set of accountability peer groups for entrepreneurs and have spoken with several strong entrepreneurs. I’m using revenue as a proxy for product–market fit. Basically, if you have over $1M in revenue, you likely have product–market fit. It’s not perfect, but it’s a simple and easy filter everyone can understand.

I’m seeing a difference within the group of entrepreneurs who have product–market fit. Two companies can each have $2M in revenue but be at different stages. For example, one might have had $1M in revenue last year; the other, $2.25M. They will be dealing with different challenges. And they might have different objectives. One may be focused on rapid growth and the other on maintenance and profit harvesting.  

Given this difference, I’m now thinking that my initial conversations with entrepreneurs should include understanding their revenue for the last few years so I can determine their growth rate. I can then ask questions about how they feel about that growth rate and what help they want from their peers (if any) in changing it.

I’ll think about this more and discuss it with others, but understanding historical growth rate might help as a filter and in matching like-minded entrepreneurs.