The Breakdown

The Fastest Way To $10k/month

$10,000/month is often a golden number for founders.

It’s the number most need to go full-time or start hiring.

So what’s the fastest way to get there?

This week we’re breaking down the most common startup business models to see which comes out on top…

1) B2C with a free trial

B2C products usually fall into the following categories:

Most of these operate the following model:

We’ve done the maths on what it takes to get to $10k/month and here are the results…

With 6,000 new customers each month, 30% converting to paid, and 60% retention after 30 days:

You’ll make $10,800 a month.

This is why B2C is a difficult game.

It’s really hard to bring in 6,000 new customers each month as a startup (unless you have a big budget…)

Plus, the 30% paid conversion rate here is optimistic, for many it can be much lower.

Luckily there’s one thing you can do to make this much easier…

2) B2C paid-only

Here we’ve simply removed the free trial from the equation.

Let’s see how the numbers stack up…

With 1,700 new customers each month and the same 30-day retention of 60%:

You’ll make $10,200 a month.

That’s the same revenue as with a free trail but with < 30% of the new customers each month.

Plus, 30% fewer customers means:

So it’s clear free trials are good at keeping you busy - but they don’t pay the bills!

But we can still do better…1,700 new customers each month is still a pretty tough ask for any new startup.

Can we find a model that will enable us to build a business to $10k/month with under 100 customers?

3) Low-ticket B2B SaaS

Startups in this category are often building products in industries like:

Products in this category often solve a niche (or ‘vertical’) problem for a specific customer, usually small and medium enterprises.

The classic model for this type of product is as follows:

Let’s see how those numbers look now…

With 450 new customers a month and 70% sticking around after 30 days:

You’ll make $10,665 a month.

Now we start to see the power of B2B models.

Generating 450 new customers every month is still difficult, but it’s much easier than the thousands required in our B2C examples.

But there’s one model that takes things to the next level

4) High-ticket B2B SaaS

Here startups are still targeting a ‘vertical’ - a niche problem for a specific customer.

It’s just that the problems are intrinsically high-value.

Here are a few examples:

These products aim to change ways of working for organisations, ultimately helping them to save time or money, or both.

That way, they satisfy the high price point through the direct savings they can bring to their customers.

Here’s what a typical model for a product in this category might look like:

With only 60 new customers a month and 80% sticking around after 30 days:

You’ll make $10,027 a month.

High-ticket B2B SaaS is the fastest way to reach $10K MRR.

And honestly, the pricing here is very conservative.

It’s not uncommon for some products to command pricing anywhere from $5k → $20K/month.

This might sound implausible, but it’s really not.

There are literally thousands of niche industries out there with unique challenges.

You might find you only need 1 customer to get to $10k/month!