Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat by Michael Masterson
What's it about?
Ready, Fire, Aim (2007) reveals proven business-building methods for achieving success fast. It also shows how you can duplicate winning strategies across multiple lucrative ventures so you never have to rely on just one. Learn essential entrepreneurial skills and strategies to vastly improve any business endeavor while positioning yourself to enjoy financial freedom.
Introduction
What’s in it for me? From startup to empire in four stages.
Want to grow your business fast? This Blink breaks down the four stages every company goes through, from scrappy startup to corporate giant. You'll get priceless tips from a multi-millionaire entrepreneur on how to evolve your mindset and strategy as you blast through revenue milestones.
Learn when to fire fast and when to aim carefully. Master the art of rapid innovation to constantly pump out new offerings. Discover how to hire a winning team and develop killer management skills. And get clear on the distinct challenges and opportunities each growth stage brings.
Dive in and you’ll learn a wealth of practical advice to help you rapidly grow your business. It's like having a master entrepreneur coach you one-on-one. Whether you're a solopreneur or scaling a seven figure company, this Blink will equip you with a roadmap to your first $100 million.
Key idea 1
The four stages of entrepreneurial businesses
Around the year 2,000, the author Michael Masterson had achieved a thirty-year career as a successful entrepreneur and multimillionaire. He didn’t need more money, but he was inspired by an ego contest. He noticed many “experts” with less experience and success selling high-ticket reservations to business seminars. Michael decided to see if he could run his own seminar and charge double the price of his competitors.
Michael knew the format of the seminar and the general subject matter, and he knew his audience – entrepreneurs of businesses with annual revenues under $500 million.
Essentially, Michael had the framework of a product figured out. But where most people would pause to develop their seminar and build out their PowerPoint presentations, he jumped straight into sales, with a goal of selling 30 tickets at $10,000 each.
It was only after he made his sales goal that he stepped back to actually develop the product he’d just sold.
If this makes you nervous, you’re not alone. But take it from a man who has repeatedly achieved entrepreneurial success: sometimes you have to fire before you aim.
Michael worked with some colleagues to research the struggles that business owners deal with when scaling. What they found across a wide range of businesses were four unique challenges that corresponded to four specific stages of business. From this finding, they developed a seminar to provide roadmaps to entrepreneurial success through each of these challenges. In the next sections, we’ll dive into each stage, one by one.
Remember, whenever your business feels stuck, it’s because what got you to where you are can’t take you to the next level. Growth means change, and these sections will describe just what kind of change is required.
Key idea 2
Stage 1: From zero to $1 million in revenue
Meet Alex, a college student who has a tuition payment coming up. Alex needs to make $40,000 fast. So he turns to the Internet to do what many people are already doing – selling advertising space. But instead of selling space by preset sizes of banner ads and images, he decides to sell by the pixel.
There are a million things that need to be done to make his website perfect, but Alex opts for 48 hours of work and a website that’s“good enough.” He then gets to work selling, and the business far exceeds his goals.
Alex’s story highlights the key mindset and strategy needed for success in the early stages of launching a business. At this point, you may not fully grasp everything required to perfectly execute your idea. But don't let that stop you! The most important thing is to make those first, profitable sales happen.
Many new entrepreneurs stall because they prioritize planning and perfecting over getting out there and selling. Their logic is that their offering will sell itself once all the kinks are worked out. But nothing happens without sales!
Instead, take Alex's lead and embrace the ready, fire, aim mentality. Get your minimum viable product to a "good enough" point. Start selling it. And let customer feedback guide how you refine things from there.
When constructing your optimum sales strategy, there are four key questions you need to ask yourself. The first question is, where's my crowd? Find successful marketing from your competitors to locate your audience. Next you’ll need to ask, what's my minimum viable product? Resist over-engineering at first. Just get something to the point where it can sell. The third question is, what's my price point? Balance profit and volume. Cover costs easily but don't price yourself out. Finally ask yourself, how will I market this? Tap creative talent to make persuasive pitches to your audience.
In the beginning, sales velocity is key - not perfection. By firing before you have everything figured out, you'll gain key insights to aim your next efforts correctly.
Key idea 3
Stage 2: From $1 million to $10 million in revenue
In stage one, we focused on selling. Now in stage two, it's time to shift gears a bit and focus on quickly creating multiple profitable products. We’re talking about getting from $1 million to $10 million in revenue.
At this point, you're likely breaking even or possibly losing money. The main challenge here is ramping up cash flow by innovating new offerings at a rapid clip. This stage is all about developing skills around speed and idea generation.
One of the most important things you can teach your team is that 80% of growth happens in direct proportion to how fast you innovate. So it's time to evolve that scrappy startup culture into one obsessed with creativity.
You'll still be selling and marketing like crazy, but you'll also need to expand your offerings with both front-end and back-end products. This prevents overreliance on one offering and creates opportunities to maximize revenue per customer.
To spur a flow of game-changing ideas, adopt the following four best practices for brainstorming.
First you need to limit your group to between three and eight people. Less than three and you risk getting stuck. More than eight and you lose efficiency. Put a time limit and rules of engagement around your brainstorming session to keep everyone focused and on the right track. Secondly, define clear goals upfront and create a way to record and store ideas that don’t apply to your current goal. Third, nurture creativity and recognize that great ideas can come from anywhere. And fourth, when inspiration strikes, take action within 24 hours by jotting down the idea or drafting some test marketing copy. Otherwise, you risk losing momentum.
Now it’s time to ready, fire, aim. When evaluating new offerings, run through these ‘Ready’ questions. Is the new offering a good idea? Does it feel promising? Is it economically feasible? Can we afford testing? Do we understand execution needs? Do we have the right team? And is there an exit strategy?
If you can answer yes to all these questions, move to the ‘Fire’ phase and launch fast. Don't let perfectionism or procrastination prevent shipping. You can correct your course later. And once you’ve launched your product, it’s time to ‘Aim’ by paying close attention to market response. Calibrate your efforts – double down if traction is strong or change course if needed.
In this second stage of business growth, as you move from $1 million to $10 million in revenue, speed is key. Innovate constantly and convert ideas into new offerings at a rapid pace. Act on inspiration quickly, and keep churning out minimum viable products.
Stage two may last a while as you establish a fertile innovation environment. But the time spent honing creativity muscles will pay off big time. With multiple cash flow offerings, you'll gain stability and optionality, and you’ll be preparing yourself for the next stage of growth.
Key idea 4
Stage 3: From $10 million to $50 million in revenue
The transition from stage two to three can feel subtle, but you'll know you're ready for it around the $10 million revenue mark. At this point, processes start breaking and customers may express dissatisfaction – clear signals that it's time to shift from scrappiness to scalability.
Stage three is all about instilling order amidst the chaos and learning to put robust systems and procedures in place. You're effectively moving from startup mode into becoming a corporate leader.
To support expansion, you'll need to establish an additional layer or two of management underneath you. Ideally, you’ll have been nurturing leaders from your early hires who can now become your executives.
Making this transition successfully requires developing six key skills:
First, you’ll need to get a handle on operations by structuring your organization for growth. While you started off getting excellent at marketing, you now have to make sure your business has the systems and processes in place needed to support maximum growth.
Second, you’ll need to empower a capable COO to manage your management team so you don't get bogged down in the operations side of things.
Because you’re the lead visionary in the company, the third skill you’ll need is to be able to communicate your vision consistently across all levels so everyone works towards shared goals.
A fourth essential skill for transitioning to stage three is networking for joint ventures and partnerships that will accelerate growth. Continued growth at this stage truly requires outside-the-box thinking and partnering with people and organizations that can expand your business.
The fifth skill you’ll need here is negotiating. You have to become adept at putting together win-win deals that allow for flexibility and fairness.
Finally, the sixth skill you’ll need for stage three is becoming skilled at hiring leadership as you'll now be selecting leaders rather than doers.
By this point in your business growth, both you and your organization will function very differently from the early startup days. Your role as founder evolves into being the primary visionary and marketing leader. You'll spend less time in the weeds of product development and more time charting strategy, branding, and partnerships.
Meanwhile, your trusted COO and executive team will handle day-to-day operations. With robust systems in place and strong leaders at the helm of each function, you're bound to crack that $50 million revenue milestone.
Stage four is challenging because it requires you to transition from maker to manager. But resisting these natural organizational growing pains will only stunt your potential. By developing key leadership abilities and empowering others, you can evolve from a business starter into an empire builder.
Key idea 5
Stage 4: From $50 million to $100 million in revenue
Congratulations, you've made it to stage four. Now the adventure really begins, as you get to chart your own path forward. With revenues slowing or stalling out around the $50 million mark, you have some big choices to make.
Do you want to keep actively growing the business? Or are you ready to step back into a minimal or advisory role? Would you rather invest your wealth or sell your company to retire comfortably? The possibilities are wide open.
If seeking continual growth, your main challenge is rediscovering the scrappy, entrepreneurial mindset from early stages. The opportunity lies in guiding your company to run itself smoothly without you.
You have three solid options for this stage. Option one is to sell your business privately. Option two is to take your company public. And option three is to become chairman of the board. Whatever you choose, start viewing your company as an asset and shift your focus away from revenue creation to wealth building. Define the role you want going forward – from passive to active involvement.
As a primary investor, you can be an advisor to the leadership team. You can help guide investment decisions and make acquisitions to expand the business. You can also take the company public or sell privately for maximum profit.
The world is your oyster. During stages one to three, you’ve ready, fired, and aimed, positioning yourself for total flexibility – both in business and life.
While few make it this far, choosing the right times to prepare, launch quickly and recalibrate has put this level of success within reach. So pat yourself on the back for making it to the founder's promised land!
Now the fun really starts as you chart the future of your company while also exploring what kind of lifestyle you want for yourself. Whether you sell and retire or stay active in a chairman role, enjoy the fruits of your labor knowing you've built something bigger than yourself. The possibilities are endless – the choice is yours.
Final summary
There are four stages to growing a successful business.
Stage one involves getting to market quickly with a "good enough" product and relentlessly focusing on sales. Perfectionism will only slow you down – be ready to launch an MVP and refine based on customer feedback.
Stage two is all about rapid innovation. Brainstorm new offerings constantly and have the agility to take action on ideas within 24 hours. Use the method of ready, fire, aim to test concepts quickly without over-analyzing.
In stage three it's time to instill order and build scalable systems and procedures. Hire professional managers and transition from startup founder into a corporate leader focused on communicating vision.
Finally, in stage four, either actively grow your business further by returning to entrepreneurial roots, take the company public, become chairman of the board, or sell the now-valuable asset for maximum wealth. By firing before we have perfect aim, we gain insights to recalibrate our efforts and accelerate growth through every stage of our business success.
Ready, Fire, Aim (2007) reveals proven business-building methods for achieving success fast. It also shows how you can duplicate winning strategies across multiple lucrative ventures so you never have to rely on just one. Learn essential entrepreneurial skills and strategies to vastly improve any business endeavor while positioning yourself to enjoy financial freedom.
Introduction
What’s in it for me? From startup to empire in four stages.
Want to grow your business fast? This Blink breaks down the four stages every company goes through, from scrappy startup to corporate giant. You'll get priceless tips from a multi-millionaire entrepreneur on how to evolve your mindset and strategy as you blast through revenue milestones.
Learn when to fire fast and when to aim carefully. Master the art of rapid innovation to constantly pump out new offerings. Discover how to hire a winning team and develop killer management skills. And get clear on the distinct challenges and opportunities each growth stage brings.
Dive in and you’ll learn a wealth of practical advice to help you rapidly grow your business. It's like having a master entrepreneur coach you one-on-one. Whether you're a solopreneur or scaling a seven figure company, this Blink will equip you with a roadmap to your first $100 million.
Key idea 1
The four stages of entrepreneurial businesses
Around the year 2,000, the author Michael Masterson had achieved a thirty-year career as a successful entrepreneur and multimillionaire. He didn’t need more money, but he was inspired by an ego contest. He noticed many “experts” with less experience and success selling high-ticket reservations to business seminars. Michael decided to see if he could run his own seminar and charge double the price of his competitors.
Michael knew the format of the seminar and the general subject matter, and he knew his audience – entrepreneurs of businesses with annual revenues under $500 million.
Essentially, Michael had the framework of a product figured out. But where most people would pause to develop their seminar and build out their PowerPoint presentations, he jumped straight into sales, with a goal of selling 30 tickets at $10,000 each.
It was only after he made his sales goal that he stepped back to actually develop the product he’d just sold.
If this makes you nervous, you’re not alone. But take it from a man who has repeatedly achieved entrepreneurial success: sometimes you have to fire before you aim.
Michael worked with some colleagues to research the struggles that business owners deal with when scaling. What they found across a wide range of businesses were four unique challenges that corresponded to four specific stages of business. From this finding, they developed a seminar to provide roadmaps to entrepreneurial success through each of these challenges. In the next sections, we’ll dive into each stage, one by one.
Remember, whenever your business feels stuck, it’s because what got you to where you are can’t take you to the next level. Growth means change, and these sections will describe just what kind of change is required.
Key idea 2
Stage 1: From zero to $1 million in revenue
Meet Alex, a college student who has a tuition payment coming up. Alex needs to make $40,000 fast. So he turns to the Internet to do what many people are already doing – selling advertising space. But instead of selling space by preset sizes of banner ads and images, he decides to sell by the pixel.
There are a million things that need to be done to make his website perfect, but Alex opts for 48 hours of work and a website that’s“good enough.” He then gets to work selling, and the business far exceeds his goals.
Alex’s story highlights the key mindset and strategy needed for success in the early stages of launching a business. At this point, you may not fully grasp everything required to perfectly execute your idea. But don't let that stop you! The most important thing is to make those first, profitable sales happen.
Many new entrepreneurs stall because they prioritize planning and perfecting over getting out there and selling. Their logic is that their offering will sell itself once all the kinks are worked out. But nothing happens without sales!
Instead, take Alex's lead and embrace the ready, fire, aim mentality. Get your minimum viable product to a "good enough" point. Start selling it. And let customer feedback guide how you refine things from there.
When constructing your optimum sales strategy, there are four key questions you need to ask yourself. The first question is, where's my crowd? Find successful marketing from your competitors to locate your audience. Next you’ll need to ask, what's my minimum viable product? Resist over-engineering at first. Just get something to the point where it can sell. The third question is, what's my price point? Balance profit and volume. Cover costs easily but don't price yourself out. Finally ask yourself, how will I market this? Tap creative talent to make persuasive pitches to your audience.
In the beginning, sales velocity is key - not perfection. By firing before you have everything figured out, you'll gain key insights to aim your next efforts correctly.
Key idea 3
Stage 2: From $1 million to $10 million in revenue
In stage one, we focused on selling. Now in stage two, it's time to shift gears a bit and focus on quickly creating multiple profitable products. We’re talking about getting from $1 million to $10 million in revenue.
At this point, you're likely breaking even or possibly losing money. The main challenge here is ramping up cash flow by innovating new offerings at a rapid clip. This stage is all about developing skills around speed and idea generation.
One of the most important things you can teach your team is that 80% of growth happens in direct proportion to how fast you innovate. So it's time to evolve that scrappy startup culture into one obsessed with creativity.
You'll still be selling and marketing like crazy, but you'll also need to expand your offerings with both front-end and back-end products. This prevents overreliance on one offering and creates opportunities to maximize revenue per customer.
To spur a flow of game-changing ideas, adopt the following four best practices for brainstorming.
First you need to limit your group to between three and eight people. Less than three and you risk getting stuck. More than eight and you lose efficiency. Put a time limit and rules of engagement around your brainstorming session to keep everyone focused and on the right track. Secondly, define clear goals upfront and create a way to record and store ideas that don’t apply to your current goal. Third, nurture creativity and recognize that great ideas can come from anywhere. And fourth, when inspiration strikes, take action within 24 hours by jotting down the idea or drafting some test marketing copy. Otherwise, you risk losing momentum.
Now it’s time to ready, fire, aim. When evaluating new offerings, run through these ‘Ready’ questions. Is the new offering a good idea? Does it feel promising? Is it economically feasible? Can we afford testing? Do we understand execution needs? Do we have the right team? And is there an exit strategy?
If you can answer yes to all these questions, move to the ‘Fire’ phase and launch fast. Don't let perfectionism or procrastination prevent shipping. You can correct your course later. And once you’ve launched your product, it’s time to ‘Aim’ by paying close attention to market response. Calibrate your efforts – double down if traction is strong or change course if needed.
In this second stage of business growth, as you move from $1 million to $10 million in revenue, speed is key. Innovate constantly and convert ideas into new offerings at a rapid pace. Act on inspiration quickly, and keep churning out minimum viable products.
Stage two may last a while as you establish a fertile innovation environment. But the time spent honing creativity muscles will pay off big time. With multiple cash flow offerings, you'll gain stability and optionality, and you’ll be preparing yourself for the next stage of growth.
Key idea 4
Stage 3: From $10 million to $50 million in revenue
The transition from stage two to three can feel subtle, but you'll know you're ready for it around the $10 million revenue mark. At this point, processes start breaking and customers may express dissatisfaction – clear signals that it's time to shift from scrappiness to scalability.
Stage three is all about instilling order amidst the chaos and learning to put robust systems and procedures in place. You're effectively moving from startup mode into becoming a corporate leader.
To support expansion, you'll need to establish an additional layer or two of management underneath you. Ideally, you’ll have been nurturing leaders from your early hires who can now become your executives.
Making this transition successfully requires developing six key skills:
First, you’ll need to get a handle on operations by structuring your organization for growth. While you started off getting excellent at marketing, you now have to make sure your business has the systems and processes in place needed to support maximum growth.
Second, you’ll need to empower a capable COO to manage your management team so you don't get bogged down in the operations side of things.
Because you’re the lead visionary in the company, the third skill you’ll need is to be able to communicate your vision consistently across all levels so everyone works towards shared goals.
A fourth essential skill for transitioning to stage three is networking for joint ventures and partnerships that will accelerate growth. Continued growth at this stage truly requires outside-the-box thinking and partnering with people and organizations that can expand your business.
The fifth skill you’ll need here is negotiating. You have to become adept at putting together win-win deals that allow for flexibility and fairness.
Finally, the sixth skill you’ll need for stage three is becoming skilled at hiring leadership as you'll now be selecting leaders rather than doers.
By this point in your business growth, both you and your organization will function very differently from the early startup days. Your role as founder evolves into being the primary visionary and marketing leader. You'll spend less time in the weeds of product development and more time charting strategy, branding, and partnerships.
Meanwhile, your trusted COO and executive team will handle day-to-day operations. With robust systems in place and strong leaders at the helm of each function, you're bound to crack that $50 million revenue milestone.
Stage four is challenging because it requires you to transition from maker to manager. But resisting these natural organizational growing pains will only stunt your potential. By developing key leadership abilities and empowering others, you can evolve from a business starter into an empire builder.
Key idea 5
Stage 4: From $50 million to $100 million in revenue
Congratulations, you've made it to stage four. Now the adventure really begins, as you get to chart your own path forward. With revenues slowing or stalling out around the $50 million mark, you have some big choices to make.
Do you want to keep actively growing the business? Or are you ready to step back into a minimal or advisory role? Would you rather invest your wealth or sell your company to retire comfortably? The possibilities are wide open.
If seeking continual growth, your main challenge is rediscovering the scrappy, entrepreneurial mindset from early stages. The opportunity lies in guiding your company to run itself smoothly without you.
You have three solid options for this stage. Option one is to sell your business privately. Option two is to take your company public. And option three is to become chairman of the board. Whatever you choose, start viewing your company as an asset and shift your focus away from revenue creation to wealth building. Define the role you want going forward – from passive to active involvement.
As a primary investor, you can be an advisor to the leadership team. You can help guide investment decisions and make acquisitions to expand the business. You can also take the company public or sell privately for maximum profit.
The world is your oyster. During stages one to three, you’ve ready, fired, and aimed, positioning yourself for total flexibility – both in business and life.
While few make it this far, choosing the right times to prepare, launch quickly and recalibrate has put this level of success within reach. So pat yourself on the back for making it to the founder's promised land!
Now the fun really starts as you chart the future of your company while also exploring what kind of lifestyle you want for yourself. Whether you sell and retire or stay active in a chairman role, enjoy the fruits of your labor knowing you've built something bigger than yourself. The possibilities are endless – the choice is yours.
Final summary
There are four stages to growing a successful business.
Stage one involves getting to market quickly with a "good enough" product and relentlessly focusing on sales. Perfectionism will only slow you down – be ready to launch an MVP and refine based on customer feedback.
Stage two is all about rapid innovation. Brainstorm new offerings constantly and have the agility to take action on ideas within 24 hours. Use the method of ready, fire, aim to test concepts quickly without over-analyzing.
In stage three it's time to instill order and build scalable systems and procedures. Hire professional managers and transition from startup founder into a corporate leader focused on communicating vision.
Finally, in stage four, either actively grow your business further by returning to entrepreneurial roots, take the company public, become chairman of the board, or sell the now-valuable asset for maximum wealth. By firing before we have perfect aim, we gain insights to recalibrate our efforts and accelerate growth through every stage of our business success.
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