While we all need a ballpark destination to justify the journey, it’s not the destination itself but the starting assumptions and milestones along the way that inform whether we are on the right path or need a course-correction.

The minimum success criteria isn't the same thing as the maximum upside potential which is a number that is very hard (if not impossible) to estimate.

The minimum success criteria is the smallest outcome that would deem your project a success 3 years from now.

3 years is usually enough time to get to Product/Market Fit

• when your business model is largely de-risked and the focus shifts to growth
• when you can see further and make 5-7 year financial forecasts

Before then, you need to rely on innovation (or traction metrics) vs. financial metrics.

Frame your outcome in terms of yearly revenue (Profit and valuation are derivatives of revenue). Your expected minimum outcome is often already set for you:

If you are a startup

• if you’ll be raising money from investors, study how your target investors value companies at product/market fit and that will give you some specific benchmarks to use in your modeling
• if you don’t intend to raise money from investors and bootstrap all the way, ask yourself
  • how big a company you’d like to build?
  • how many employees?

If you work in a big company

• ask your stakeholders now vs three years from now how they’ll define success
  • if they aren’t sure, benchmark your minimum success criteria against the top ten products your company has launched. If you can promise to beat their three year revenue trajectory by 2-3X, you should be able to get your stakeholders onboard

The purpose of this exercise is ballparking a rough estimate. And it’s helpful to start in powers of 10:

• $100K/yr: Roughly enough to quit your day-job

• $1M/yr: A small 2-3 person company

• $10M/yr: A VC back-able business

  Five ways to build a $10 million business