The 2X in '26 Playbook

Here’s some other content from the Scalable network, plus some other cool stuff I liked and thought you might like, too:

Last week, I was in a strategic planning session with one of our portfolio companies.

They’ll finish 2025 with around $5M in revenue.

It’s a solid business. Real team. Real traction.

Their goal for 2026?

Double sales to $10M.

It’s a reasonable goal. It’s also one I hear constantly from founders at this stage.

The problem is that most teams set a 2X target without a shared playbook for how doubling actually happens, so I walked them through the 2X in ’26 Playbook…

…the same decision sequence we use across our companies to double revenue without doubling risk or chaos.

It’s just four steps and four simple questions:

This is always the first question…and it should be.

Inputs are the top-of-funnel levers that reliably create qualified demand…things like:

For this company, we chose to start with ad spend.

The mistake most teams make is trying to double everything at once and assuming the outputs will stay the same.

(Spoiler: they never do.)

Instead, we modeled a modest, 20% increase in ad spend on the single channel that had consistently produced qualified customers.

Our assumption was simple: We believed we could increase spend by 20% without materially impacting lead quality or conversion rates. On the other hand, if we doubled ad spend, we’d risk attracting lower-quality leads that would convert at a lower rate and invest at a lower cost-per-sale.

So that’s where we chose to start…

Not a new channel.
Not a new “funnel.”
Just a little more volume (20%) through a path we already trusted.

Average Customer Value (ACV) only moves three ways: 1) customers buy more, 2) stay longer, or 3) buy higher-value outcomes.

At planning time, this business looked like many others at this stage:

Instead of chasing more leads, we focused on creating a higher-value solution for the customers we already had.

We call these “10X for 10% Offers.” The idea is simple: build a premium solution priced meaningfully higher than your core offer that only needs to convert with a small percentage of your best customers to move the math.

For this business, we modeled a 30% ACV increase—from $5,000 to $6,500—driven by a $30,000 premium service that only needs to convert with 5% of the customer base to hit the target.

With the modest input increase from Step 1, customer count moved from 1,000 to 1,200.

Revenue at that point: 1,200 × $6,500 = $7.8M

No new audience.
No new channels.
No new chaos.

Most founders think conversion is about persuasion.

It’s not…it’s about throughput.

So we didn’t try to double any single conversion metric by rewriting the home page or rolling out a brand-new sales script.

Instead, we mapped the entire Growth Engine (a simple flowchart that shows how customers actually happen), then brainstormed a list of small tweaks and micro-optimizations that could be made throughout the funnel.

Things like clearer:

We estimate these changes will produce a 25% improvement in conversion efficiency across the engine.

That same activity level now results in 1,500 customers, not 1,200.

Revenue becomes: 1,500 × $6,500 = $9.75M

Same audience.
Same core offer.
Same sales process.

The final step is audience expansion…and we save it for last because it’s the riskiest.

It’s expensive. It introduces unknowns. And it’s where identity drift usually starts.

So we were careful.

We tested a slightly broader problem statement to appeal to a slightly larger market.

Same story.
Same outcome.
Same positioning.
Bigger pond.

If we’re right, that small expansion should add another 5 - 10% in volume…enough to comfortably push the business past $10M.

No repositioning.
No identity drift.
No rebranding risk.

Here’s what doubling looks like when you stack small gains in the right order.

This company currently has:

Now let’s look at what happens when we follow the playbook instead of trying to force a single lever to 2X sales.

Step 1: Inputs up 20%

We’re not doubling ad spend or headcount…just making a modest 20% increase to the ad budget. That takes us from 1,000 customers to 1,200.

Step 2: ACV up 30%

We introduce a higher-value offer…a premium tier…that increases average customer value from $5,000 to $6,500.

Revenue at this point: 1,200 × $6,500 = $7.8M

Step 3: Conversion efficiency up 25%

We simplify pricing, speed up onboarding, and clarify qualification rules. Throughput improves, so the same input volume now produces 1,500 customers.

Revenue becomes: 1,500 × $6,500 = $9.75M

Step 4: Audience slightly broader

We move upmarket…just a bit. Same problem. Bigger buyer.

If we’re right, that adds another 5 - 10% in volume.

That takes us comfortably past $10M…without doubling ads, staff, or stress.

None of these moves are dramatic on their own, but stacked in the right order, they compound.

And that’s how doubling actually happens.

⚡️ Action Step: Write these four steps on a single page and plug in your real numbers. Identify the first lever you can improve by 10–20% in the next 30 days, then work through the rest to build your own 2X in ’26 Playbook.

P.S. I’m looking for 5 business owners who want to work 1-on-1 with my team and me to install a custom “operating system” before the end of 2025, so your business can scale and so you can exit the day-to-day. Click here for the details.