How to Scale Your Business to Year Five

You'll have a five-year annual forecast: the first two years from your Build, then the climb from a sustainable business to the enterprise you want by year five. Scale is optional and never changes your two-year forecast.

Before You Start

• Where: the "Scale" card on a Blueprint's dashboard. It opens once Build is done.
• Plan: every input step is free. The 5-year results need a paid tier. On the free plan, you see example results.
• Have ready: a sense of who else you could sell to, and what the business would need to buy to get there.

Steps

1. Define your market. On "Who Could You Realistically Sell to in Five Years?", click "Create new market" for each buyer group, then enter how many buyers you can reach and what one pays a year. This is your ceiling, not your forecast.
2. Set year-five revenue. On "What Does a Full Year-5 Look Like?", each revenue line starts where Build ends. Set its year-five figures, then assign each line to a market under "Market Allocation" to see the share of the market it implies.
3. Set the costs at that size. "What Does It Cost to Deliver That Revenue?" takes direct costs for each stream. "What Does It Take to Run the Business at That Size?" takes operating expenses, each held at a fixed amount or set to scale with revenue.
4. List the big purchases. On "What Will You Invest In to Reach That Scale?", click "Add an investment" for each piece of equipment, vehicle or build-out, with its asset type, amount and the year you buy it.
5. Choose the growth path. Under "Growth Path to Year 5", pick "Approaching Maturity" or "Compounding Growth". Then pick a "Default Schedule" for when fixed costs come online ("In Step With Growth", "Committed Upfront" or "Steady Ramp"), and adjust single lines if you need to.
6. Submit and read the results. Click "Submit". The 5-Year Annual Forecast shows "Revenue & Growth", "Your Market Opportunity", the "Cash Balance Forecast", the "Consolidated Statement" and the profit of each product or service.

Tips

• Years three and four are drawn between your Build's year two and the year five you set. Year two and year five don't move when you change the path.
• Changed your Build since? A banner on the revenue step offers "Re-pull from Build" to refresh the starting point.
• On a paid tier, click Occam's avatar in the bottom right corner to pressure-test the growth story. Occam reads your Scale plan and can look up benchmarks and competitor pricing, for 1 credit a question.

Common Questions

Does Scale change my 24-month forecast?
No. Years one and two always come from Build.

Why size the market first?
It keeps the ambition grounded. The revenue step shows how much of each market your year five needs, so a plan that has to win most of its buyers stands out.

Do the big purchases hit profit?
No. They come out of cash in the year you buy them and lower tax through depreciation, but operating profit stays as it is.