What Changes at $100M ARR

The strategies that took you from $0 to $100M ARR will actively hurt you from $100M to $500M.

I've seen this pattern three times: Hortonworks, Cockroach Labs, and StarTree. Each time, we hit a wall around $100M where the playbook that got us there stopped working.

Here's what needs to change.

Related: This builds on the HUNT Framework for early-stage and requires building repeatable sales processes to scale.

The Founder-Led Sales Ceiling

At $10M ARR, founder involvement in deals is an accelerant. At $100M ARR, it's a bottleneck.

The problem:

Founders can't scale. You can't be in every $1M+ deal when you're doing 50 deals a year. Your calendar becomes the constraint.

The solution:

1. Document your sales motion - Write down exactly how you sell. What questions do you ask? What objections do you handle? What's your close sequence?

2. Train your AEs - Your best AEs should be able to run deals without you. If they can't, you haven't documented the process well enough.

3. Get out of deals - Start by shadowing, then advising, then only joining for final negotiations. By $150M ARR, you should be in <10% of deals.

At Hortonworks, I went from being in 80% of $1M+ deals to 5% in 18 months. Our close rate stayed the same. That's how you know the system works.

Building Repeatable Processes

The goal isn't to have the best salespeople—it's to have a system that makes average salespeople great.

The framework:

1. Standardize discovery - Every AE asks the same 15 questions. Same order. Same follow-ups.

2. Template proposals - Your proposals should be 80% template, 20% customization. If every proposal is custom, you're not scaling.

3. Playbook objections - Document every objection you hear. Write the response. Train your team. Update quarterly.

4. Scorecard qualification - Use MEDDIC or BANT. Score every deal. Don't forecast deals that score below threshold.

The metric:

Your sales efficiency should improve, not degrade, as you add AEs. If each new AE performs worse than the last, your process isn't repeatable.

At Cockroach Labs, we went from 6 AEs to 24 AEs in 18 months. Our average deal size stayed the same. Our close rate improved. That's repeatable process.

Geographic Expansion

International expansion at this stage requires dedicated leadership, not stretched existing teams.

The mistake:

Most companies try to expand internationally by asking their US team to "also cover Europe." This fails. Every time.

The framework:

1. Hire local leadership first - Don't send an American to run Europe. Hire a European who knows the market.

2. Start with one country - Don't try to cover all of Europe. Pick one country (usually UK or Germany). Dominate it. Then expand.

3. Replicate the playbook - Your US playbook works, but it needs localization. Same framework, different execution.

4. Separate P&L - International should have its own P&L, its own targets, its own leadership. Don't mix it with US.

At StarTree, we expanded to Europe 18 months after hitting $100M ARR. We hired a VP Sales for EMEA first. Then we hired 3 AEs in London. We hit $5M ARR in Europe in 12 months. Then we expanded to Germany.

The Organizational Shift

The biggest change isn't in sales—it's in how the organization operates.

From: "We'll figure it out" To: "We have a process for that"

From: "Let's try this" To: "What does the data say?"

From: "The founder will handle it" To: "Follow the playbook"

This shift is uncomfortable. It feels like you're losing agility. But agility doesn't scale. Process does.

The companies that make this shift hit $500M ARR. The ones that don't stall at $150M.

Which one are you?