This is the first post in a series on the topic of Growth Endurance — fast growth, many years in a row.
We’re accustomed to hearing about startups that have tripled, quadrupled, quintupled, or grown even faster in the early stages. But once you’ve reached the tens of millions of ARR, it’s very hard to grow fast. That’s why very few companies have reached $100M in ARR, and why even fewer continue to double when they’re at that scale.
Bessemer Venture Partners pointed out in their annual State of the Cloud report a few months ago that while 520 unicorns were minted in 2021, only ~60 new $100M ARR companies were added. They gave those companies “Centaur status.” Centaurs are 7x more rare than unicorns. And Centaurs with real growth endurance are even more rare.
Despite their rarity, the imperative to grow fast is stronger than ever before. Companies have raised money at astronomical valuations, which assume they will continue to grow fast for years to come.
But because there are very few companies that have done this successfully, the best practices on Growth Endurance are hard to find. That’s why I launched this new series.
In this episode, I sat down with Ariel Cohen, the CEO of TripActions. TripActions was named to the Forbes’ Cloud 100 list of the world’s top private cloud companies several years in a row. They are also rumored to have filed confidentially to go public at a $12 billion valuation.
You can listen to the podcast or else read the lightly edited transcript of the conversation. Let's dive in!
