Another way of saying same. If employees are in your future, focus on revenue per employee (RPE).
Napkin math: sub-$100k RPE and your wee company is nominally profitable after salaries, fixed & variable costs. Greater than $100k per employee, profits scale nicely.
While nice to talk about the Goog's RPE ($1 mil '08), I prefer to "fish" for company ideas a little closer to Earth. For inspiration, Inc 5000 companies with 50 or fewer employees, sorted by revenue:
Napkin math: sub-$100k RPE and your wee company is nominally profitable after salaries, fixed & variable costs. Greater than $100k per employee, profits scale nicely.
While nice to talk about the Goog's RPE ($1 mil '08), I prefer to "fish" for company ideas a little closer to Earth. For inspiration, Inc 5000 companies with 50 or fewer employees, sorted by revenue:
http://www.inc.com/inc5000/2009/search_results.html?showrank...