What is a realistic growth rate?

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 | commentary

What is realistic growth rate to expect for a high-potential startup?

Here is an inflation-adjusted chart of 100 high-tech companies (click for interactive chart):

growth-chart

This chart is a useful reality check on business plans. It’s very hard to be a “rocketship” – one of the red curve companies in the chart that attains $50mm within 5 years. Neither Microsoft nor Oracle did so and if your business plan says you will, it’s probably incorrect.

Tags: business model, data, startups