For years, I bought into the idea that growing a business by 10x is easier than growing by 2x.

I still do, but with some caveats.

The principle is useful, but there are a few subtleties that its strongest proponents don’t always spend enough time on. And those subtleties matter, particularly for solo consultancy founders who want to grow without sacrificing the lifestyle they have worked hard to create.

The core philosophy of 10x growth

Although it is often presented as an attractive hook, the core philosophy behind 10x growth is really about architecting the right future.

When you only focus on the next step, you don’t think deeply enough about the future you are creating.

It’s a bit like designing a building.

Building a block of 10 apartments is probably only about twice as difficult as building a single house. But if you had in mind building 10 apartments and didn’t design the foundations correctly, architect it fully, or secure the right funding, it would likely be 100 times more difficult than building a single house under similar conditions.

When you design for the next jump, you break through the ceilings that would hold you back if you only designed for the next step.

For solo consultancies, the typical jumps are from £10k months to £30k months, then to £100k months.

When you design around these jumps, you ask different questions of your business and yourself. The answers to those questions allow you to see the constraints that would hold you back if you were only planning for incremental growth.

The part that is often missed

The part that is often assumed is that you are designing your business jump from proven foundations.

To make any jump successfully, you have to jump from a stable platform. If you’ve ever tried jumping from an unstable surface, you’ll know you don’t get as far as you would from firm ground.

A business growth jump shares more similarities with a physical jump than we might first think.

When you’re experiencing feast-and-famine cycles as a consultancy, achieving higher and more consistent revenue becomes an essential goal. A promise to make that easier is naturally attractive.

But the stable platform has to come first.

Focus on the stable platform first

My definition of a stable platform for a solo consultancy is:

£10k of monthly recurring revenue that you can deliver in under 30 hours a week, with a clear plan to reduce the delivery time over the next nine months, and a proven new-client-attraction process that replaces natural client churn.

That definition has three parts.

Why £10k monthly recurring revenue?

As long as you’re running with circa 70% or better gross margins, £10k per month provides a comfortable income for most solo consultancy founders.

That means you’re not worrying about the day-to-day of paying bills and feeding the family.

It gives you space to breathe and plan for your future.

Why a reducing 30 hours per week?

Just as you need financial space to grow, you also need time.

If your client delivery is taking more than 30 hours a week, once you factor in the time needed to run the business and replace natural client churn, you have very little capacity for growth.

You need to create time and capacity for your next jump, which is why you need a clear plan to reduce the delivery hours required for the £10k MRR over a period of nine months.

As a solo consultancy, it is often better, and completely feasible, to create the capacity to earn £30k of monthly retained revenue while keeping the shape of your business, rather than immediately building a team.

At the same time, building a small team as a considered strategy to create a stable platform can also be the right option.

The important point is that the decision is made deliberately, rather than as a reaction to pressure.

When you can deliver £10k of MRR in reducing time, it gives you confidence that you can make the jump to £30k without burning out.

Building that confidence in layers, by reducing delivery time incrementally over nine months, is both more achievable and more maintainable than a big-bang approach.

Your system to replace client churn

Client churn is a natural part of the consultancy journey.

Your job is to help clients transform from one state to another. When they have reached their desired state, your work is done. It is time for that client to progress to their next chapter, and for you to bring in a new client.

Understanding that journey, and having the processes in place to replace natural client churn, is the first phase of your growth system.

It is also essential for maintaining your stable platform.

These are the components that allow solo consultancies to make their next business jump.

You can and should design the jump before you have the stable platform. That design gives you the direction.

But you still have to establish the stable platform.

Because without it, the attempt to jump is far more likely to fail.