ICYMI: The What, Why, and How of Building a Billion Dollar Business
Last week, I got to dive deep on a favorite topic at Women + Tech in the Atlanta Tech Village —> building BIG companies!
We talked about:
What “big” means
Why it matters
How you actually do it
And —**BONUS** — the 2 secrets that make all the difference
Here’s the FULL SLIDE DECK with a bulleted summary below.
The only thing missing are my awesome jokes (LOLZ) and the great audience questions.
You have to be in-person for those! 😂
GO BIG: The What, Why, and How of Building a Billion Dollar Business
The Ah-Ha → Think Bigger!
Where are all the women (in VC and large startups)??
Many social, external things holding women back
Within our control? More women thinking big!
Look in the mirror → I need to think bigger too.
BHAG set: 10 female-founded unicorns in the Southeast in the next 10 years
The What → Unicorns
$1B valuation
$100M ARR
~10 years to build
500-1000 employees
10% employee option pool
10% - 75% owned by the founder (depending on funding rounds)
The Why → Huge Impact
$100M to employees
$100M - $750M to you (founder)
Help thousands/millions of customers
Make the world better
Be an example, open doors for others
Generational wealth, philanthropy, investor
The SECRET → Bigger Is Not Harder
It’s hard to build a small company too. (Ask any entrepreneur!)
Building a big company is not 10-1000x harder.
But the impact is 10-1000x bigger.
P.S. Women do tons of hard stuff all the time!
The HOW → Big Market, Start Small
1. Pick a BIG market
Software has great margins + scale.
Be in the path to revenue.
BIG Market Examples: aging in place (and more here), robotics, creator economy, healthy fast food, carbon tracking
2. Start SMALL
DO NOT build tech to start!!!!!!
Follow the money.
Look for authentic demand.
3. Start a Tech Company…Without Tech
Social post (Greenzie)
Waitlist sign up (Atlanta Ventures Studio)
Community of target users (Salesloft)
Manually solve it (Carpool Logistics, AdPipe)
Consulting (Unboxt, Zinnia)
Customers pay upfront
Spoiler Alert: You can learn tech or find a co-founder! Many tech founders and CEOs are not engineers.
THE HOW → 10 Tips To Raise Money
WATCH: The real reason female entrepreneurs get less funding (Dana Kanze)
Show **real** customer traction (not pipeline or hypotheticals)
Go to Pitch Practice → pitchpractice.co
Who has $$ that cares about this problem?
HAVE YOUR CUSTOMERS PAY YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THE HOW → Unicorn Founder Traits
Learning - grow as your company grows
Selling - sell to customers, investors, employees, future employees. You cannot outsource this! But you can learn it.
Resilience - successful founders leave high paying jobs (and don’t go back 😜)
Authenticity - do it in your own style, lean into your strengths
BIG MARKETS! - great people who pick small ideas don’t build unicorns
THE (other) SECRET → Everyone Has Doubts
They seem wildly confident but even the most successful founders have doubts.
“I got lucky.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“We’re making it up as we go.”
“I hate public speaking.”
They do it anyway.
So can you!
What other advice do you have for building big???
If you attended, what was your favorite takeaway? Any that I didn’t mention in the recap?