3 Secrets for Growing From $1 Million to $100 Million in 3.5 Years

3 Secrets for Growing From $1 Million to $100 Million in 3.5 Years

Do you genuinely want to succeed? If so, how quickly and with how much money must you arrive? Applying your biggest strength to a market that is modest today but will grow significantly in three years is one of the smartest ways to succeed. You should also establish a fantastic team so you can reach $100 million in revenue.

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I included a chapter on that strategy in my 2012 book, Hungry Start-up Strategy, after speaking with about 200 entrepreneurs and startup investors. It is essential reading for my entrepreneurship class at Babson College, which U.S. News & World Report has placed No. 1 for undergraduate entrepreneurship education for the previous 17 years and which Money named America's top college in July 2014.

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Fiksu is one of the most prosperous startups I spoke with for the book. With just $17.6 million in venture funding, the company's sales has increased by 216 percent since it began selling in 2010, going from less than $1 million to $100 million in just 3.5 years.

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Speaking about intelligent, Micah Adler, CEO of Fiksu, enjoys creating algorithms to create processes for resolving challenging issues. He obtained his undergraduate degree at MIT, a Ph.D. from Berkeley, and tenure as a professor of computer science at UMass Amherst before leaving to found his own business.

Amazing numbers have been posted on the board by Fiksu. According to the company, its Programmatic Mobile Demand Platform now offers "mobile media inventory and advanced optimization to more than 800 customers, and promotes more than 2,300 mobile apps." Its data also includes profiles for nearly 60% of the smartphones and tablets in use worldwide, three billion app downloads, and 3.5 trillion marketing events.

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1. Strive to excel at what you enjoy.

Whatever you are good at, you should always strive to be the best. You will get wealthy if that ability is one that the market considers to be very valuable.

Adler is really fortunate to be skilled at creating algorithms, as this is a skill that the market values. He holds a Ph.D. in the subject from one of the greatest universities in the world, making him one of the best in the world at it.

Fiksu initially struggled when he veered off the path of algorithms. Its fortunes also rose when Adler allowed Fiksu to resume placing bets on algorithms.

Fiksu's initial concentration was on developing apps, but a significant realisation caused it to rethink its direction. According to Adler, "We created a mobile-friendly news aggregation app similar to Google News. It was more popular for a short period of time in the middle of 2009 than The New York Times or CNET. But in just two months, we fell from receiving tens of thousands of downloads per day to just 50. We need to take something beyond PR to gain attention and downloads, I remarked."

Adler returned to his original love as a result. He said, "We started building algorithms to make digital marketing effective.

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2. Place a wager on a market that will grow quickly.

Put your money into a market that is expanding rapidly if you want to make progress quickly.

Marketing for mobile apps definitely suits. Two years after Fiksu began operations, in 2012, this market generated $19 billion in revenue while expanding at a rate of more than 60% annually.

This market has just grown since then. Adler rejoiced: "Digital media has surpassed television as the preferred platform for seeing advertisements. And mobile applications account for 51% of all digital media consumption. Advertisers are suddenly spending their marketing expenditures on smartphone apps. And for them, our technology provides important answers:

The number of downloaded apps. Do they perform well? Do they result in purchases?

3. Employ and inspire the smartest individuals.

Nobody has ever discovered a way to create a $100 million company with just one employee, no matter how smart they are. A creator needs to appoint a large number of highly intelligent coworkers who can cooperate rather than clash.

Fiksu appears to have discovered how to accomplish this. The employment of an excellent staff is one of the five key factors in Fiksu's success, according to Adler. We employ highly intelligent individuals that are humble and like working with others. We have a great culture that values openness, transparency, lack of offices, a flat organisational structure, and absence of office politics.

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