How mid-market firms reach $100M

Your growth capital allocation reveals your actual strategy. Most firms don't realize theirs has drifted.

The structural cause

Over time, firms drift. New executives bring different operating models. Market conditions shift. Operational reality diverges from leadership's beliefs about how growth happens.

Growth capital flows to legacy priorities that no longer align with operational or market reality.

This misalignment is the structural variable that determines whether firms scale or stall.

The pattern

We modeled 500 mid-market firms across five unique go-to-market orientations and 40 variables.

73% of firms that reached $100M shifted their dominant orientation at least once during their growth journey.

Meanwhile, 89% of firms stuck below $30M maintained their original orientation throughout the study period.

GTM and growth capital orientation rigidity traps firms. Orientation flexibility unlocks scale.

The impact of realignment

Firms with flexible, aligned belief-behavior orientation and capital allocation demonstrated:

• 4x higher median revenue growth over 10 years
• 14x higher probability of reaching $100M
• 88% lower probability of stalling below $30M

You can now diagnose your actual orientation, identify belief-behavior gaps, and reallocate capital to remove growth drag, all without adding headcount or budget.

Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

COLLINGS&CO

Growth Diagnostics & Market Intelligence