🥷 3 ways to kill a B2B unicorn in no time:
1. Major compliance lawsuit (legal failure, data breach, tax evasion)
2. Brand reputation scandal (discrimination, child labor abuse, secret tapes)
3. A key demand or supply channel disappearing (negative PPC ROAS, email blacklist, China trade war implications)
In terms of startup scalability, I’m referring to the last ARR tier:
👉 $0-1M: Getting a business off the ground
👉 $1M – $8M: Clearing out PMF and establishing processes to scale
👉 $8M – $50M: Establishing MOAT and targeting TAM domination
👉 $50M – $1B+: Preservation and legacy
I’m discussing GTM diversification and survival in today’s newsletter (live on LinkedIn on Saturday), but here’s how to apply risk management toward each of these areas.
Compliance fail: ⬇️
First off, preventive measures at all costs. Proper account chart, audits, contracts with 3rd parties (Big 4, security firms), access control lists with limited access.
Tight contracts, insurance firms, legal council in each country.
And enough buffer in the bank against GDPR/CCPA surprises.
Brand damage: ⬇️
Internal fail (fire fast + PR) or external (reputation attack from competitors). Both can be mitigated – and more importantly, unless it’s a diversity/inclusion/homophobic scandal (which shouldn’t happen anytime), it shall pass in a few weeks.
And great products will survive when the need is in place.
Bonus points for running a holding company with different brands. ◀️ Alphabet runs a series of companies; standalone corps have limited impact on the parent. Take a look at Open AI’s complex chart or the FTX attempt prior.
Demand/supply bus factor: ⬇️
Diversification at all costs.
The most mind-boggling omission I see is a limited subset of GTM channels available.
B2B SaaS, healthcare, cybersecurity running a playbook utilizing SEM or Meta PPC, investing $1M to $20M a year on ads with inbound BDRs and neglecting everything else.
💣 Social being non-existent; same for YouTube. First-party data as well – lack of newsletters. No founder-led or executive branding, webinar sequences, podcasts. No MOFU content on the corporate website.
When channels dry out or generate negative ROI, the best thing to do is launching parallel initiatives and reviving other motions in the rear mirror.
Existing properties that aren’t top of mind, but still exist and stay maintained.
You don’t have to maintain 500K followers on social to get this right, but you’ll start nearly from zero if your accounts do not exist, or you rock 200 subscribers and have been posting twice a year.
