When a startup reaches year three it is no longer crawling in the crawl, walk, run continuum. It has survived the danger zone (imagine Top Gun soundtrack of Danger Zone) in which most companies fail.

“Highway to the Danger Zone, CEOs. Listen up,” says Maverick.

If it is typical, it has a well developed product or service — well beyond Minimum Viable Product — and if it is in the commerce space it may have sales of as much as $10,000,000. It is likely profitable and if the growth rate continues, it will be very profitable.

With success comes a new set of problems and many times they are related to staff. Has the staff grown at the same rate as the company? Can the staff you hired when the company was a seed run this larger and more complex enterprise? It happens all the time.

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