Pioneer to Expansion Sprint

Slack grew from $0 to $1 billion valuation in 8 months without marketing spend—90-95% of growth was organic, with Stewart Butterfield personally handling Twitter and customer feedback. Marc Benioff built Salesforce on his Oracle sales playbook, systematically codifying what worked before hiring. Both understood what pioneer species understand: you don't scale before you've modified the environment for successors.

Forest succession follows a predictable sequence: pioneer species (fast-growing, sun-tolerant, short-lived like fireweed and alder) colonize disturbed ground, then modify the environment—alder fixes nitrogen, fireweed enriches soil, both create conditions that favor different species. The transition isn't gradual; pioneers literally create conditions that kill them while enabling successors.

This 90-day sprint structures the startup equivalent. Month 1 (Foundation): Document what's actually working before trying to scale it. Record customer conversations, map the buyer journey, identify best-converting segments. Output: Sales playbook v1 (10-15 pages), VP Sales hired. Don't hire reps before systems exist—pioneers planted before soil prep fail at higher rates. Month 2 (Infrastructure): CRM operational, lead routing established, enablement materials complete (deck, demo, ROI calculator, case studies, battlecards). Month 3 (First Hires): Two SDRs and one AE. Shadow selling, role reversal, begin outbound. First SDR-sourced meeting confirms the system works.

Entry criteria: >$10M ARR growing >100%/year, >70% retention, NRR >100%, CAC payback <18 months. Miss any threshold and the transition likely fails—you're forcing succession before the ecosystem is ready. For the full Forest Succession framework with stage-specific guidance, see Growth Stages.