We have been lucky enough to have worked alongside a team who has walked the journey from $0 to $100m. I have spoken to many other owners, sales leads, individual contributors and VCs. 

On this journey we have learned a lot. 

Many of the learning's we thought made sense we have implemented. Not all worked.

The point i wrote this book is to clarify my thoughts. I hope this process also allows some others to glean something useful from the book (if nothing more something to peruse whilst on a plane or swilling a scotch).

Thanks for all of those who have helped me learn (particularly my brother, the CEO at Culture Amp where this learning journey has occurred).

Good luck to you with whatever dream you are pursuing. 

Ramon & Didier Elzinga

$0-$1m ARR is the hardest part for any start up.

When we first started Culture Amp we built a product called Process Amp. It failed. 

Then we built a product called Cadence. It failed.

Then we built a product called Murmur. It kinda failed.

Then we tweaked Murmur and renamed it Culture Amp. It didn't fail. We had success. Overnight in only 10 years.

We learnt a lot from both success and failure.

[cartoon of person walking up a hill]

The Beginning

Culture Amp was incorporated in 2009 however it wasn't until 2011 that a team of four engineers came together to build their dreams (Didier, Doug, Rod & Jon). I joined as their 3rd employee.

Laid out below are the different steps we went through. On reflection we probably could have done the 4 steps in 3-4 months. It took us 2 years. Outlined below are the things we learnt in the elongated process.

Take 1 - The First idea 

Process Amp ... bla bla

Take 2 - The Second Idea

Cadence .... bla bla

Take 3 - The Third Idea

Murmur

Take 4 - Tweaking idea 3

The next idea was how to solve the biggest problem the four founders had experienced in their careers to date - how can we apply technology to improve peoples lives at work (having a vision communicated, accelerating learning, etc).

All 4 had had terrible experiences with the "performance management" part of work so that became the 

What did we learn? What would we do next time?

1. Sell before we build
2. Replace something (rather than selling something new)