01
Start-Up
Prove It
Can we get enough of the right customers to buy, at economics we can sustain, before cash or attention runs out?
The name of the game is Viability. Gate: Under $1M.
Founder Scaling Dynamics
Know What Game
You Are Playing.
Every gate opens a different game. Map your stage, see what the game requires and identify the challenges most likely shaping your next move.
10 questions. About 4 to 6 minutes. No account required.
Start the 10 questions ↓Revenue marks the gate. Capability determines what comes next.
The five games
Five gates. Five games. Five different definitions of winning.
02
Stable
Repeat It
Can capable people sell, deliver and manage ordinary work reliably without constant founder rescue or veteran memory?
The name of the game is Repeatability. Gate: $1M to $10M.
03
Growth
Organize It
Can the management team and management system run ordinary significant work without requiring the founder to integrate, arbitrate, approve or rescue it?
The name of the game is Organizational Capability. Gate: $10M to $50M.
04
Early Scale
Decentralize It
Can capable executives and units make consequential decisions inside clear authority without routine founder approval?
The name of the game is Distributed Authority. Gate: $50M to $100M.
05
Mature Scale
Institutionalize It
Can the enterprise preserve performance, renew leadership, allocate resources and adapt through institutional mechanisms that do not depend on one leader?
The name of the game is Institutional Maturity. Gate: $100M and above.
The gate and the game
Every gate opens a new game.
Revenue is a gate. Crossing it changes what the company is, not how capable it is. What waits on the other side is a different game with different rules, and the abilities that got you through the last one rarely win the next.
Crossing is not mastery. Five different definitions of winning.
The five games in order: Start-Up, Prove It; Stable, Repeat It; Growth, Organize It; Early Scale, Decentralize It; Mature Scale, Institutionalize It.Every gate opens a new game.
New here
The user guide explains the five games, how the ten questions work, how to read your result and its guardrails, and what to do next. It is free, like the Map.
Why good advice fails
Good advice. Wrong game.
Most advice founders receive is sound somewhere. It fails because it belongs to a different game. Get out of the business is right in one game and premature in another. Hire an executive is right when the function exists and costly when it still lives in your head.
Premature distance
Pulling the founder out of selling and customer contact before the acquisition motion works.
Stay close enough to learn what is true.
Premature process
Installing mature-company systems before the model has earned them.
Prioritize customer acquisition, cash and fast learning.
Premature acceleration
Adding more volume before sales and delivery are repeatable.
Finish repeatability before multiplying the load.
Premature executive hire
Hiring a senior leader into a function that exists mostly in founder intuition.
Make the method transferable first.
More people as the answer
Adding headcount when coordination and structure are the actual constraint.
Professionalize management: build managers, roles and decision ownership.
Tool-first scaling
Adding software on top of unresolved processes.
Resolve the operating logic before automating it.
Go deeper on the terrain
This high-level map helps you confirm the general location. The books provide detailed maps of the terrain.
The Founder's Gauntlet
The growing pains of each game, and the sequence in which companies meet them. The closest companion to your result.
Read the bookTalk it through with Athena
Athena brings your result into the conversation and will pressure-test it against what is really happening in your company.
Meet AthenaKeep a record
The Journal is free. Keep notes on what the current game is asking of you and watch the pattern change as the company does.
Open the JournalHe knew where the company was on the map now. He had probably known for a while, without the language for it.
You have to know which game you are playing before you can determine how to win the game.