To be honest, startups play on another level than most SMBs. With a SMB, you can double your growth every year for 5-10 years straight, and do very well, but not be interesting for VCs. To be interesting and relevant for VC money, you need a business that can scale to millions of users.
If you can show that you're able to double growth every month (or similar short-window metrics) with an idea that could scale to a billion dollar company, you'll get the interviews all right. Hype is a big part of growth.
The problem, so to speak, is that you'll be competing against other startups - and if you they have the VC money, but you don't, there's a good chance they'll outpace/outgrow you.
I think it's very noble to grow as much as you can organically - but realistically speaking, it's difficult to compete against those that are funded.
And you don't really need to use the money you get - being funded also comes with a signaling effect. You get lots of publicity, and get to signal that serious investors are willing to back you.
Actually you would be interesting for VCs if you started compounded from a reasonable start like $1m/year. Doubling for five years would get you to $32m/year, and 10 years to 1b/year, leading to a $10b valuation.
One common benchmark for startups at the $1m/year stage is T2D3 (triple, triple, double, double, double).
To be honest, startups play on another level than most SMBs. With a SMB, you can double your growth every year for 5-10 years straight, and do very well, but not be interesting for VCs. To be interesting and relevant for VC money, you need a business that can scale to millions of users.
If you can show that you're able to double growth every month (or similar short-window metrics) with an idea that could scale to a billion dollar company, you'll get the interviews all right. Hype is a big part of growth.
The problem, so to speak, is that you'll be competing against other startups - and if you they have the VC money, but you don't, there's a good chance they'll outpace/outgrow you.
I think it's very noble to grow as much as you can organically - but realistically speaking, it's difficult to compete against those that are funded.
And you don't really need to use the money you get - being funded also comes with a signaling effect. You get lots of publicity, and get to signal that serious investors are willing to back you.