Early Signals from TNW Council’s Concierge Model Reveal a Fundamental Divide in Startup Growth Challenges

The first few weeks of TNW Council’s concierge service have already yielded revealing insights that cut to the heart of a persistent misconception in the startup world: that scaling challenges remain consistent as companies grow. The early data tells a different story entirely.

From the moment founders and executives began engaging with the concierge model, a clear bifurcation emerged in their needs and priorities. This wasn’t a subtle difference—it was a fundamental shift in the nature of the problems being solved, the expertise required, and the outcomes being sought.

The €1-10M Founder: Practical Execution Over Theory

Founders operating in the €1 to 10 million revenue range are grappling with what might be called “first-order” scaling problems. Their questions reveal a focus on tactical execution rather than strategic abstraction.

The pattern that emerged was remarkably consistent: these founders aren’t looking for another growth framework or theoretical model. Instead, they’re seeking concrete, actionable guidance on three core areas:

Positioning clarity – Understanding where they fit in an increasingly crowded market, how to articulate their value proposition, and which customer segments to prioritize. This isn’t about finding product-market fit anymore; it’s about refining and defending it as competition intensifies.

Channel optimization – Moving beyond experimentation to systematic, repeatable customer acquisition. These founders are past the point of trying everything; they need to know what works specifically for their business model and how to scale it efficiently.

Prioritization frameworks – With limited resources and infinite possibilities, they need help distinguishing between what’s urgent and what’s important. The challenge isn’t generating ideas—it’s executing the right ones in the right order.

Execution guardrails – Perhaps most tellingly, these founders are seeking to avoid the expensive mistakes that their peers have made. They want to learn from others’ failures without paying the tuition themselves.

The conversations reveal founders who are past the chaotic early days but not yet ready for enterprise-level sophistication. They’re building repeatable processes, establishing leadership teams, and preparing for the next growth phase—but they’re doing it with the resource constraints and market pressures that define the €1-10M journey.

The €10-100M Leader: Beyond Playbooks to Strategic Navigation

Leaders operating at €10 to 100 million in revenue present a strikingly different profile. Their questions and concerns suggest they’ve moved beyond the tactical challenges that consume their smaller counterparts.

What’s immediately apparent is that these executives aren’t asking for growth playbooks. They’ve already built and executed multiple playbooks. They’ve scaled teams, entered new markets, and navigated the complexities of multi-product organizations.

Instead, their focus has shifted to what might be called “second-order” problems:

Organizational complexity – Managing the transition from founder-led to professionally managed organizations. This includes everything from succession planning to cultural preservation as companies scale.

Market evolution – Understanding how their market position changes as they grow, and how to defend against increasingly sophisticated competition. The dynamics that worked at €10M are often insufficient at €50M or €100M.

Strategic trade-offs – Making high-stakes decisions about market focus, product investment, and competitive positioning. These aren’t questions with clear right answers—they require nuanced judgment and experience.

Leadership development – Building the next generation of leadership while managing their own evolution from operator to strategic leader. Many of these executives are navigating their first experience as CEOs or functional leaders at scale.

The conversations with this group reveal leaders who are less interested in “what to do” and more focused on “how to think” about complex, ambiguous situations where there’s no clear playbook to follow.

Why This Matters: The Myth of Linear Scaling

The early results from TNW Council’s concierge model expose a critical myth in startup thinking: that scaling is a linear process where the same principles apply regardless of company size.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. The challenges, required expertise, and support structures needed at €1M versus €10M versus €100M are fundamentally different. Yet much of the startup ecosystem—from accelerators to content to investor advice—treats scaling as a one-size-fits-all journey.

The implications are significant:

For founders – Understanding where you are in your scaling journey helps you seek the right kind of help. A €3M founder doesn’t need the same support as a €30M executive, and pursuing the wrong kind of advice can be actively harmful.

For service providers – The market is fragmenting, and successful support models need to recognize these distinct segments rather than trying to serve everyone with a generic approach.

For the ecosystem – Investors, advisors, and media need to calibrate their expectations and advice to the specific challenges of each scaling phase rather than applying universal principles.

The Concierge Model’s Early Success: Meeting Leaders Where They Are

The early success of TNW Council’s concierge approach appears to stem from its recognition of these distinct needs. Rather than offering a generic “startup advice” service, the model seems to be calibrated to meet leaders at their specific stage of growth.

This targeted approach is particularly valuable in an ecosystem where most advice is either too basic for scaling companies or too abstract for early-stage founders. The concierge model appears to be filling a genuine gap by providing stage-appropriate guidance from peers who’ve actually navigated similar challenges.

What Comes Next: Scaling the Insights

As TNW Council continues to gather data from its concierge conversations, the early patterns suggest several interesting directions:

Deeper segmentation – The €1-10M and €10-100M split may itself be too broad. There may be distinct sub-segments within each range with their own specific needs.

Community building – Leaders at similar stages may benefit from peer connections as much as from expert guidance. The model could evolve to facilitate these connections.

Content calibration – The insights could inform more targeted content creation, ensuring that advice is appropriately calibrated to different scaling phases.

Product development – Understanding these distinct needs could inform the development of specialized tools and resources for each segment.

The Bigger Picture: A More Nuanced View of Scaling

The early results from TNW Council’s concierge model offer a valuable corrective to the often oversimplified narratives about startup scaling. They suggest that successful growth isn’t about following a universal playbook—it’s about recognizing where you are in your journey and seeking the right kind of support for your specific challenges.

For the startup ecosystem, this means moving beyond one-size-fits-all advice toward a more nuanced understanding of how scaling challenges evolve. For founders and executives, it means being more intentional about the kind of help they seek and more critical of advice that doesn’t match their current reality.

The early signals are clear: scaling is not a linear journey, and the problems that keep founders up at night change dramatically as companies grow. Recognizing and responding to these differences isn’t just helpful—it’s essential for sustainable growth.

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