Answer This Question Before Setting Another Business Goal

Entrepreneurs are remarkably good at setting business goals. $1 million in revenue. Then $5 million. Then $10 million. Ten employees. Then 25. Then 100. One location. Then three.

There’s just one problem: We rarely stop to ask what any of it is for.

I’ve asked business owners why they want to reach their next revenue milestone and received some surprisingly vague answers. “We should be able to get there.” “It’s the next level.” “That’s where a company like ours should be.”

None of those is a strategy.

The question I think entrepreneurs need to answer before setting another growth target is much more personal: What is enough?

Not because you should stop being ambitious. Because until you know what you’re trying to achieve, you have no rational way of deciding how much business you actually need.

Your business is supposed to do something for you

This isn’t an argument against making money. In fact, recent research suggests we should be careful with the fashionable idea that money eventually stops mattering.

A 2024 analysis by happiness researcher Matthew Killingsworth compared a large U.S. income sample with two groups of high-net-worth individuals. He found that happiness continued to be positively associated with money even at very high levels of income and wealth. Wealthier participants were substantially happier than people earning more than $500,000 a year.

So I’m not going to tell an entrepreneur that wanting more money is somehow shallow. Money matters. It creates security, choices and opportunities.

But there’s a difference between wanting more money for a reason and pursuing more simply because “more” has become the default setting.

If you haven’t defined what the business is ultimately supposed to make possible, there is always another number. You hit $1 million and start thinking about $2 million. At $2 million, someone asks about $5 million. Then $10 million suddenly sounds like the number that would really mean you’ve made it.

The finish line keeps moving because you never actually decided where to put it.

Define your Champagne Moment

In my coaching work, I ask entrepreneurs to define something I call their Champagne Moment. It’s the point at which you can look at something your business has enabled you to do, experience or achieve and think: “This is what I was building it for.“

I’ve seen wonderfully different answers.

For one entrepreneur I’ve coached, it included having the money and freedom to go to the Kentucky Derby — not someday, but because they could decide that was an experience they wanted and make it happen. For another, it was having the freedom to live and work from Europe for the summer.

Another wanted to purchase their first investment property, creating a source of passive income and beginning to build wealth outside their professional services company. And another wanted something much bigger: to retire from the company and have the freedom and financial resources to spend half the year in Europe.

None of those goals appear on a P&L, but each tells us something incredibly important about what the P&L needs to produce.

That’s the point of a Champagne Moment. It turns an abstract ambition like “I want financial freedom” or “I want a successful company” into something tangible. Once you know what winning looks like personally, you can start designing for it commercially.

Entrepreneurs often start businesses for exactly these reasons

There’s evidence that this personal dimension of entrepreneurship isn’t peripheral.

FreshBooks’ 2024 State of U.S. Small Businesses research found that eight in 10 business owners started their businesses seeking the freedom and flexibility of self-employment. Its research also found that 79% were driven into business by a desire for independence or fulfillment rather than external necessity.

That matters because many entrepreneurs didn’t start businesses because they dreamed of managing 100 employees or seeing an eight-figure revenue number on a spreadsheet. They wanted control, independence, financial opportunity, flexibility and the ability to build something on their own terms.

Yet somewhere along the way, it’s remarkably easy to replace those original ambitions with conventional business metrics. Revenue becomes the goal. Headcount becomes evidence of progress. Being busy becomes evidence that you’re important.

And the business that was supposed to create freedom can gradually consume it.

Turn your Champagne Moment into an Enough Number

Defining the personal destination is only the beginning. Ask yourself what your Champagne Moment actually requires. Suppose you want the ability to spend three months of every summer living in Europe while continuing to own your company.

Perhaps you need $400,000 in annual owner income. Perhaps you want to work no more than 30 hours a week. Perhaps the company needs a leadership team capable of operating for weeks without your physical presence. Perhaps you need recurring or predictable revenue so you aren’t spending your summer worried about next month’s sales.

Those requirements begin to create what I call your Enough Number. Despite the name, it isn’t necessarily one number. It’s the economic specification for the life you’re trying to create.

It might include:

Owner income: How much do you actually want the business to provide each year?

Wealth: What level of investable assets or business equity are you trying to create?

Outside income: Do you want investments, property or other assets generating income independently of the company?

Time: How many hours a week do you actually want to work?

Freedom: What do you want to be able to do without the business preventing you from doing it?

Put numbers and specifics against those answers wherever possible. “I want more freedom” is an aspiration. “I want to spend June through August in Europe while working no more than 20 hours a week” is a business requirement.

Now work backwards

Once you know the outcome, stop asking: “How big can I make this company?” Start asking: “What company do I need to build to produce that outcome?”

Let’s say your desired lifestyle and wealth objectives require $500,000 in annual owner earnings. Does that require a $20 million company? Maybe. But perhaps a highly profitable $4 million or $5 million business could produce it.

Those are radically different companies. They may require different numbers of employees, different management structures, different capital requirements and very different amounts of the founder’s time.

Likewise, if your Champagne Moment involves selling the business for $10 million, your priorities change again. Now recurring revenue, management independence, customer concentration and transferable enterprise value may matter far more than maximizing what you take out of the company this year.

The destination determines the business design.

Your business goals should be the consequence of your life goals, not the other way around.

Put your Enough Number next to your revenue target

Most entrepreneurs already have some version of a revenue target. Keep it, but put your Enough Number beside it.

At your next quarterly or annual planning session, write down five things:

1. My Champagne Moment: What does winning make possible?
2. My required owner income: What does the business need to provide me annually?
3. My wealth target: What assets or enterprise value am I trying to build?
4. My time target: How much of me should the business require?
5. My business requirement: What revenue, margin, team and business model can realistically deliver the first four?

Then compare those answers with the company you’re currently building.

You may discover you need to grow considerably faster. You might need to build a management team, increase margins, create recurring revenue, acquire another company or prepare yours for sale.

But you might discover something equally powerful: You don’t need as much business as you thought you did.

Perhaps the next office isn’t necessary. Perhaps doubling headcount isn’t progress. Perhaps the next $3 million of revenue creates complexity without materially improving your life, wealth or enterprise value.

Knowing what enough looks like doesn’t make you less ambitious. It makes your ambition more precise.

Decide where the finish line is

Entrepreneurship is extraordinarily good at giving us another mountain to climb. There will always be someone with a bigger company, a larger exit, more employees, another home or a higher net worth.

If you use “more” as your definition of success, you can never actually win. Your Champagne Moment gives all that ambition a destination.

Maybe yours is ringing the bell after selling a company. Maybe it’s buying your first investment property. Maybe it’s taking your children around the world for a summer. Maybe it’s simply sitting at the Kentucky Derby, champagne in hand, knowing the business is running perfectly well without you.

The important thing isn’t which one you choose. It’s that you chose it.

Because if you don’t define “enough,” you’ll spend your entire entrepreneurial life chasing more.