61 - Want to Scale from $10M to $20M? Start Thinking Like an Investor, Not Just an Operator
Scaling from $10M to $20M requires more than optimization; it demands a new perspective. This episode explains why thinking like an investor, not just an operator, helps you build a business that’s scalable, valuable, and sellable.
Want to Scale from $10M to $20M? Start Thinking Like an Investor, Not Just an Operator
Most entrepreneurs who grow to $10M do so by mastering execution. However, to increase from $10M to $20M or beyond, you need to stop optimizing and start architecting. That means shifting from operator to investor.
This episode breaks down the most overlooked key to exponential growth: building a business designed to be sold, even if you never intend to sell it.
Here are the key takeaways:
1. Design with the Exit in Mind.
Businesses that are scalable, profitable, and systematized are also more sellable. When you build with that end goal in mind, you’re forced to remove dependencies, improve margins, and document operations.
2. Operators Optimize. Investors Engineer.
Operators think in terms of “how do I get this done better?” Investors think: “Is this business structurally sound, repeatable, and transferable?” That shift creates discipline and long-term leverage.
3. Remove Founder Dependence.
The most significant value drag on any company is when it relies on its founder to run it. Building a truly scalable company means creating systems, leadership, and infrastructure that function independently.
4. Clarity Drives Quality Decisions.
When you evaluate your business as an asset, rather than a job, your decision-making improves. You make fewer emotional choices and more structural ones, the kind that make valuation, growth, and eventual exit possible.
Build Like You’ll Exit Even If You Don’t.
You don’t have to sell your company. But you do have to build it like someone else eventually could. That’s how you create clarity, scale, and true freedom, whether you stay, step back, or exit entirely.
This episode provides you with the mindset and structure to double the value of your business by designing it for the next level, not just the next quarter.
Highlights:
00:00 Scaling Your Business: Investor's Perspective
00:08 Designing a Sellable and Scalable Business
Links:
Website: https://www.marcogrueter.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcogrueter/
Transcript:
The one thing that helps scale your business from 10 to 20 million is looking at, at it as an investor. Most businesses are not built to be sellable, so build it up from the beginning as a sellable business, even if you don't want to sell it, and you completely differently design it, making it scalable, at least 2x.