Leadership · Every phase
The five growth phases
You know why your phase is about your market rather than the size of your team, and you open the lesson for your phase.
Does this sound familiar?
- You get advice for 'a company your size', and it doesn't fit what your customers are doing right now.
- What made you strong two years ago, selling it yourself and doing everything by hand, now feels like it's holding you back.
- Everyone around you is talking about growth, while you're not actually sure yet which customer you can help best.
Who it's for, and when
For every founder, in every phase. Start here if you want to know where you stand, or if advice that worked for another company doesn't fit yours.
The model
In 1972 Greiner wrote that a company grows through crises that come with its size: more people, then more structure, then more layers. That held true at a time when more revenue meant more people.
That link has broken. With software and AI, a company of twenty-five people can be worth more than one of two hundred and fifty. Sometimes a big team mostly shows that you've set up the work to need a lot of people. Revenue and team size are no longer a compass for where you stand.
So this model looks at your fit with the market: what customers do. Do they buy twice? Do they refer others? Does the next customer cost less than the last one? In each phase the market asks a different question, and the phase asks something different of you. What works in one phase holds you back in the next.
That means you don't work through the phases like lessons. Find your phase from the signals below and open the lesson for that phase. A phase often lasts years, and the move from one to the next is gradual.
Boldcaster, the growth phase model (2026), boldcaster.com/groeifasen. It departs from Larry Greiner's model, set out in his Harvard Business Review article on evolution and revolution as organisations grow (1972), in which growth is about hiring people and building structure.
1 Searching
Customers find it interesting, but nobody buys twice. The question: what's the problem, and who really has it?
Searching: who really has the problem?2 Proving
Customers come back and refer others without you asking. The question: how do I make this repeatable?
Proving: how do you make it repeatable?3 Organising
It works, but only when you're there: customers are buying you, not yet the company. The question: how do I take myself out wherever I can?
Organising: how do you take yourself out?4 Growing
Revenue rises sharply, through new products, segments or countries, and costs rise with it. The question: which leap makes us unbeatable?
Growing: which leap makes you unbeatable?5 Scaling
Every euro of revenue costs less than the one before. The question: do I take that margin as profit, or put it into even more growth?
Scaling: take the margin or win the market?Pitfalls
Picking the phase you'd like to be in
Everyone likes to think they're in Growing. Look at what customers actually did over the last three months. Skip a phase and you'll still run into its question later.
Reading the audit's result as the truth
The audit gives a first impression based on revenue, gross profit and team size. A consultancy with lots of people quickly lands in Scaling there, even if every new client costs an extra consultant. The signals from your market tell you whether it's right.
Watch and read
The core of this model in two minutes: you read your market fit from what customers do, not from what you build yourself.
Watch on YouTubeLinkedIn's co-founder on how a founder's job changes in every phase, and why you have to let go of what worked before.
Watch on YouTubeTo go further
What Chesky did well as a founder stopped working when the company moved into a different phase, and how he had to change his role.
Watch on YouTubeRead
The Lean Startup
Eric Ries · 2011 · ISBN 9780307887894
Learning from the market instead of executing a plan: the mindset behind every phase of this model, strongest in Searching and Proving.
View the bookApply it
- 1
Read the signals from your market
Go through the five phases above and look at the last three months, not at what you hope for. What are your customers doing: are they buying, coming back, referring others, and what does the next customer cost you?
- 2
Put it next to the audit's result
Does it match the phase the audit worked out? If there's a difference, write down why. The numbers are often a phase ahead of what the market is already doing.
- 3
Open the lesson for your phase
It covers what that phase asks of you, where founders get stuck and which lessons matter for you now. If you're torn between two phases, start with the earlier one: its question is still open.
- 4
Look again every quarter
Do the audit again every quarter and see whether the signals shift. On the Scale-up School overview you can filter by your phase.
Examples
An installation company with €4m revenue
On the numbers it's in Growing. But every quote goes through the owner, and what the company sells depends on him. The market is still buying the owner rather than the company. That's Organising.
A software company
Customers renew, and two of the last five came through a referral. That's Proving. The founder wants a leadership team and a manual. Better to first work out which segment responds best, and do more of that.
A consultancy with lots of people
On team size the audit puts it in Scaling. But revenue grows by twenty per cent every year, and so does the number of consultants: every euro of revenue costs as much as it did last year. That's Growing. Scaling only starts when the next client doesn't cost an extra consultant.
Do this in your own business
Everything up to here is free. What you fill in for your own business, you keep in Boldcaster.
- Go to the Audit. In the Audit, open your latest audit. At the top of the report, under Your phase, you'll find the phase the audit worked out.
- You assign the lesson to your team and see who has done it.
- The quiz counts towards your progress, and you see which lesson comes next.
Four weeks free. You'll land straight in this lesson.
Quiz
5 situations. You need 4 of 5 right. You can try again at any time.
1.Two companies each have €6m in revenue. One has 18 people and a product customers buy on their own; the other has 70 people and every client gets a team of its own. What does headcount tell you about their phase?
2.You've had twenty conversations with potential customers. Everyone finds the idea interesting, nobody has signed. You've changed your proposal three times in two months. Which lesson do you open?
3.Customers are renewing their contracts, and your last three new customers came through referrals. Which question goes at the top of your plan for this quarter?
4.The audit puts your company in Growing. But what you sell only sells when you're at the table. What do you do?
5.Your cost ratio has been falling for a year while revenue grows. Every new customer costs you less than the one before. Which lesson do you open?
Nothing is saved here. In the app, the quiz counts towards your progress.
Read next
- Your strategy on one page · You know why your strategy fits on one page, which boxes to fill in at your phase, and in what order.
- Searching: who really has the problem? · This month you'll have five conversations about what customers actually did, and afterwards you'll know which problem you solve and for whom.
- Proving: how do you make it repeatable? · You measure whether customers would really miss you, pick the segment that responds most strongly and put your time there this month.
Not sure where to start? Take the growth scan