Essay · Long essay, roughly 15 to 20 minutes

Five ways to build a $100 million business

Christoph Janz · The Angel VC (Christoph Janz, Point Nine Capital) Free Intermediate

Janz's animals framework (mice, rabbits, deer, elephants, whales) reframes the whole niche question around one thing: what does one customer pay you, and can you build a repeatable, referenceable path to a hundred more like them. That reference-customer logic is the real driver behind winning India first or a global niche, since it forces you to ask where your believable early references actually live. It is the cleanest mental model we know for choosing which beachhead to own before you expand.

  • Which market to win first is really a question of average revenue per customer and whether you can reach enough of them profitably.
  • Early reference customers who talk to each other are what let a niche compound into a bigger market.
  • Pick the beachhead where your first believable references sit, then have a concrete plan for expanding out of it.
Open on christophjanz.blogspot.com ↗

It answers 2 questions

  1. How much of the market do I realistically need to capture for this to be a real business?
  2. For an Indian B2B SaaS, is it better to win a niche in India first or go straight for a global niche?

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