
By Tom Glover, Chief Revenue Officer at Responsive Technology Partners
I often get asked about how we grew Responsive Technology Partners from $600,000 to $22 million in revenue in just five years. People expect to hear about a perfectly executed strategy or some secret formula for success. The reality? It was messy, challenging, and full of failures that taught us valuable lessons. As we navigate 2025, I want to share the unvarnished truth about what it really takes to achieve sustainable growth.
Setting Audacious Goals (Even When They Seem Impossible)
In 2018, we set what seemed like an impossible goal: becoming a $20 million company by 2024. Looking back, it was a mix of ambition and naivety that made us believe we could do it. But here's the thing about ambitious goals – they force you to think differently about everything you do.
When you're trying to grow 36X in five years, you quickly realize that simply working harder isn't going to cut it. You need to fundamentally change how you operate. And that's where our real journey began.
The First Attempt: Learning What Doesn't Work
Our first attempt at scaling the business was, frankly, a disaster. We tried to grow by simply doing more of what had worked when we were smaller. The result? Overwhelmed employees, inconsistent service delivery, and systems that couldn't keep up with demand.
We learned our first major lesson: what works at $600,000 in revenue simply doesn't work at $2 million, let alone $20 million.
The Second Attempt: Better, But Still Not Right
Our second attempt focused on building better systems and processes. We spent months documenting procedures, implementing new software, and creating what we thought was a scalable operation. But we still hit a wall.
Why? Because we were so focused on the systems that we forgot about the people who had to use them. We learned our second major lesson: the best systems in the world won't work if your team isn't bought into them.
The Third Time's... Well, Better
By our third major iteration, we started to figure some things out. Here's what finally began working for us:
1. Embrace the Chaos (But Control It)
Instead of trying to eliminate all problems, we got better at managing them. We created systems for identifying issues early and addressing them before they became crises. This meant:
- Weekly "problem-spotting" meetings where team members could raise concerns without fear
- Regular stress-testing of our systems to find breaking points before they actually broke
- Creating rapid response protocols for when things inevitably went wrong
2. Build for the Next Level
We started building systems and processes not for where we were, but for where we wanted to be. This meant:
- Investing in technology that seemed oversized for our current needs
- Hiring people who could grow into bigger roles
- Creating scalable processes that could handle 5X our current volume
3. Focus on Culture Over Control
We finally understood that sustainable growth wasn't just about systems and processes – it was about building the right culture. This meant:
- Encouraging open discussion about failures and lessons learned
- Celebrating attempts at improvement, even when they didn't succeed
- Creating an environment where innovation and problem-solving were valued over perfection
The Real Metrics That Matter
Through our journey, we discovered that traditional growth metrics only tell part of the story. Here are the metrics that really helped us understand our progress:
Leading Indicators:
- Employee Satisfaction Trends (unhappy employees lead to unhappy customers)
- System Utilization Rates (how close are we to breaking our current infrastructure?)
- Problem Resolution Time (are we getting better at handling issues?)
Lagging Indicators:
- Revenue Growth (important, but not the whole story)
- Customer Retention (are we growing sustainably?)
- Profit Margins (are we scaling efficiently?)
Where We Are Now
As we move through 2025, we're still learning and adjusting. That $22 million revenue mark? We hit it ahead of schedule, but not because we executed perfectly. We got there because we were willing to:
- Admit when things weren't working
- Learn from our failures
- Keep iterating until we found solutions that worked
- Stay focused on our long-term goal
The Path Forward
We're still not perfect – far from it. We're currently working on version 5.0 of our service delivery model, because versions 1.0 through 4.0 all had their limitations. But that's the point: sustainable growth isn't about getting everything right the first time. It's about being willing to recognize what's not working, learn from it, and keep pushing forward.
Lessons for Other Business Leaders
If there's one thing I want other business leaders to take away from our experience, it's this: the path to significant growth is never as clean or straightforward as it looks from the outside. Success comes not from avoiding mistakes, but from learning from them faster than your competition.
Here are some practical tips for your own growth journey:
- Set ambitious goals, but be flexible about how you achieve them
- Create systems for identifying and learning from failures quickly
- Focus on building a culture that can sustain growth
- Measure what matters, not just what's easy to measure
- Be willing to admit when something isn't working and try a different approach
Your Turn
I'd love to hear about your experiences with growing a business. What lessons have you learned from your failures? How do you balance ambition with execution? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Tom Glover is Chief Revenue Officer at Responsive Technology Partners. He has led the company's growth from $600,000 to $22 million in revenue through a process of continuous learning and adaptation. Tom shares practical insights from his 35+ years of business leadership experience, including the failures that led to success.