Fast early sales don't mean a startup is ready to grow, experts say

A startup can sell a lot in its first months and still not be ready to grow. That was the message from three tech figures at this year's TechCrunch Disrupt. Their advice for the first 90 days: do not treat quick early revenue as proof that the business is ready to scale. What matters is whether the company can win customers the same way again and again.

Fast growth, fast crashes

The speakers were Luke Arno, who leads go-to-market at Lovable, Ben Broca of the AI platform Polsia, and Tomasz Tunguz of Theory Ventures. Go-to-market means how a company finds and wins customers. The panel said AI has changed how fast startups can grow. Some reach high annual recurring revenue, or ARR, only to crash a few months later.

The test: can you repeat it?

Arno said founders should build what he called learning density, or pattern recognition, about where their customers are. He warned against rushing to build a large sales operation before that point.

His example was simple. Ten customers won in ten different ways, for ten different problems, bring in revenue but give no clear way to scale. Three customers won with a similar approach for a similar problem give much more confidence.

• Early, fast revenue is not a sign of readiness on its own.
• If every sale needs new tactics, product-market fit is not there yet.
• Hire a sales team after the same approach has worked repeatedly.

Why the pressure is high

Lovable, the AI app-building startup, has set the bar. Its investors value it at more than $13 billion. It says its ARR has passed $600 million, and it has raised more than $700 million in funding. Tunguz said expectations for execution speed are tremendous. He also said growth like Lovable's is still the exception, though founders should still move fast.

He said much more money now flows through the startup world at every stage than when he began investing in 2008. A seed deal, an early funding round, could be $5 million, $50 million or $500 million.

Stay close to customers

Broca said product-market fit is among the hardest things to find right now, partly because competitors can copy so many products. His company uses AI agents to build and run businesses with almost no human staff, and he says he is its only employee. Even so, he stressed community building and closeness to customers. Founders can send emails and host events. He likes to talk to many customers himself. His rule: always be talking to customers.