What happens when entrepreneurs stop aiming for small, incremental gains and instead think ten times bigger?
I asked a group of business leaders to share one real-world example of how they applied the “10x is easier than 2x” principle by Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan to grow their business.
Their responses offer powerful, firsthand insights into what it truly takes to scale boldly. In this article, you’ll find actionable strategies, mindsets, and pivots that helped these experts unlock extraordinary growth.
Here’s a quick view into how some businesses applied the 10x is better than 2x principle:
1. Transformed Donor Experience Boosted Repeat Donations
By reinventing donor recognition through interactive storytelling, Rocket Alumni Solutions drove an 80% revenue surge and a 25% boost in repeat giving—proving emotional connection 10x’ed engagement.
2. Reinvented Brand Presence Increased Market Share
Best Online Cabinets revolutionized their customer journey with AI-powered personalization, achieving massive market differentiation and growth instead of just modest marketing tweaks.
3. Targeted High-Value Clients Increased Revenue
Tenet skyrocketed revenue by shifting from volume-based sales to targeting high-value enterprise clients with specialized offerings, turning fewer deals into dramatically higher returns.
4. Scaled Impact with Online Course
By turning individual therapy services into a scalable online course and thriving community, The Traveling Therapist reached 950+ clinicians—multiplying impact without multiplying hours.
5. Created Advanced Product for New Markets
AIScreen launched a transformative new product line that unlocked entirely new markets and business models, achieving faster growth than any set of feature tweaks could have.
6. Revolutionized Customer Acquisition
EcoATM abandoned incremental marketing for radical acquisition strategies—like co-ops and unconventional campaigns—fueling explosive customer growth without extra spend.
7. Pivoted to High-Level Marketing Teams
Prose 10x’ed client value by evolving from basic content writing to delivering full-stack, strategic marketing teams, winning larger contracts with fewer clients.
8. Shifted to Comprehensive Digital Packages
Website Design Brampton transitioned from small web projects to high-ticket digital transformation packages, tripling revenue by doing less—but much bigger—work.
9. Launched New Product Line for Growth
Cirrus Bridge leapt from optimization to reinvention by launching a bold enterprise product line, unlocking simplified operations, higher margins, and faster growth.
Read a deeper breakdown and find ways to significantly improve your business performance faster rather than slower.
1. Transformed Donor Experience Boosted Repeat Donations
The concept of “10x is easier than 2x” resonated when we transformed our donor recognition approach. Instead of just improving our existing communication with donors, we personalized recognition displays and showcased their stories in our interactive software. This move lifted the donor experience significantly, leading to a more than 25% increase in repeat donations.
By investing in dynamic displays rather than minor performance tweaks, we opened new avenues for donor engagement. One major breakthrough came when we started featuring real-time progress and alumni success stories on large touchscreens; this created an emotional connection that data alone could never achieve. This strategy boosted engagement at events and immediately translated to an 80% YoY growth in revenue.
These 10x strategies taught us the power of storytelling and personalized acknowledgment, proving that a bigger leap often leads to a more substantial and enduring impact. It’s about creating an ecosystem where our stakeholders feel acknowledged and valued, turning them into enthusiastic ambassadors who naturally attract new supporters.
Chase Mckee, Founder & CEO, Rocket Alumni Solutions – Digital Record Board
2. Reinvented Brand Presence Increased Market Share
Applying the “10x is easier than 2x” mindset has fundamentally changed how we tackle challenges. One standout instance was when we faced stiff competition in the online market. Rather than just aiming to slightly increase our sales or improve our existing marketing tactics, we took a step back and asked ourselves how to completely reinvent our brand presence.
This led us to adopt a more holistic approach by enhancing our e-commerce platform and integrating advanced AI features to personalize the shopping experience from start to finish. By completely rethinking the customer journey, like implementing features that suggest cabinet styles based on home photos we encourage customers to upload, we transformed what could have been a simple upgrade into a groundbreaking service.
This overarching vision, applied across the board, clearly differentiated us from our competitors. It drives significantly greater engagement and dramatically increases our market share. Instead of inching forward, we chose to leap, and the results have validated that bold thinking can lead to extraordinary outcomes, reshaping our entire approach to growth in the industry.
Josh Qian, COO and Co-Founder, Best Online Cabinets
3. Targeted High-Value Clients Increased Revenue
Based on my experience, a clear example of growing our agency by applying the ’10x is easier than 2x’ principle involved our approach to client acquisition.
Instead of incrementally trying to get a few more clients each month (the 2x mindset), we shifted our focus to landing a few significantly larger, higher-value clients (the 10x mindset).
This meant investing heavily in building a specialized, high-end service offering, refining our sales process to target enterprise-level businesses, and creating case studies that demonstrated substantial ROI. We stopped spending time on smaller, less profitable deals.
The result was a dramatic increase in revenue with fewer, but more valuable, clients, including Fortune 1000 companies.
Shantanu Pandey, Founder & CEO, Tenet
4. Scaled Impact with Online Course
The principle “10x is easier than 2x” came to life for me when I transitioned my therapy practice from a purely individual service model to creating a scalable online course, “DIY Insurance Billing for Private Practice.”
Instead of attempting to slightly grow my client base, I dramatically expanded my impact by educating over 950 clinicians through an online platform. This shift allowed me to tap into a larger audience who wanted the knowledge and tools to manage their own practices more effectively.
Additionally, cultivating a community, Bill Like A Boss, for therapists managing insurance billing helped me provide support on a larger scale, fostering an environment of collective learning and growth.
This community not only brought therapists together but also expanded my professional network, driving further business opportunities and collaborations. Through these scalable ventures, I was able to lift my business exponentially rather than incrementally.
Kym Tolson, Therapist Coach, The Traveling Therapist
5. Created Advanced Product for New Markets
When I was looking to expand our product offerings, I realized just how limiting the “small, incremental improvements” approach can be. At first, I thought adding a few new features or services would be the way to go.
But then I started thinking about what would really shake things up. I decided to focus on creating a whole new, more advanced version of our product. That would open up entirely new market segments—and a whole new level of value for our customers.
What if we could make our product 10 times more impactful? That’s what I aimed for. And what we got was a product that didn’t just augment our existing portfolio—it transformed our business model. By going big, we attracted a whole new range of clients, and revenue grew much faster than it would have if we’d just been tweaking what we had.
That experience taught me that aiming higher actually simplifies the path to growth. By focusing on bigger, more strategic changes, you can make real progress. And that’s exactly what happened here.
Nikita Sherbina, Co-Founder & CEO, AIScreen
6. Revolutionized Customer Acquisition
The “10x is easier than 2x” concept transformed our approach to growth. It’s easy to get caught up in making incremental small improvements in marketing, but those typically don’t shift things in significant ways. I believed that tenfold growth was not just possible, but often easier than working on modest incremental changes.
A prime example is when we revolutionized our approach to customer acquisition. Rather than tinkering around the edges with new tweaks on familiar channels, we changed the paradigm to new, out-of-the-box approaches to communicating with potential customers.
This translated to investigating co-ops, rolling out entirely new campaigns outside the realm of straight digital marketing, and revamping how we were conveying value to our audience. The result was dramatically improved new customer sign-ups as well as retention rates, without incurring extra marketing expenses.
Instead of confining ourselves to modest objectives, we focused on creating dramatic changes that have lasting outcomes. The strategy demonstrated that thinking bigger doesn’t merely create new opportunities; it drives growth faster than incremental enhancements ever could. We experienced the power of aiming for 10x growth and the potential it unleashed.
Alec Loeb, VP of Growth Marketing, EcoATM
7. Pivoted to High-Level Marketing Teams
We took the “10x is easier than 2x” principle to heart when we pivoted from offering basic content writing to providing high-level, fractional marketing teams. Instead of just growing by offering more writing, we scaled by adding strategy, data analysis, and even AI-powered marketing. We didn’t just double down on what we were already doing–we completely rethought our value and aimed for a huge leap.
The result? We landed bigger clients, increased revenue per project, and boosted client retention because we were offering a way higher level of service. It wasn’t about doing 2x more work–it was about changing the game entirely, which got us 10x the impact with way less incremental effort.
Justin Belmont, Founder & CEO, Prose
8. Shifted to Comprehensive Digital Packages
The ’10x is easier than 2x’ principle completely transformed our web development agency. Instead of incrementally improving by seeking 2x growth–adding a few more clients with the same services–we reimagined our entire business model.
We shifted from being a service-based website provider to creating comprehensive digital transformation packages. Rather than charging $3,000-5,000 per website, we developed all-inclusive growth systems combining web design, SEO, content strategy, and business consulting priced at $15,000-25,000.
This 10x thinking forced us to target more established businesses, improve our capabilities, and build systems to deliver higher value. Within 18 months, our revenue tripled while we actually served fewer clients. The paradox proved true–thinking 10x was indeed easier than the incremental 2x approach because it demanded complete reinvention rather than just working harder within the same constraints.
This shift also attracted better team members who were excited by our vision and higher-caliber clients who valued strategic partnerships over transactional services.
Harmanjit Singh, Founder & CEO, Website Design Brampton
9. Launched New Product Line for Growth
A few years ago, we were aiming to grow revenue by a modest 20-30%. Our roadmap was filled with incremental improvements: tweaking pricing, adding features, and tightening sales operations.
However, it all felt like we were merely rearranging furniture rather than building something transformative. That’s when I encountered the “10x is easier than 2x” concept—and it compelled me to confront the fact that we were optimizing for comfort, not potential.
Instead of trying to do more with the existing model, we asked: What would it take to completely redefine the value we deliver? This led us to launch an entirely new product line that served a higher-tier, enterprise market—something we’d previously avoided because it seemed risky and “too big.”
But aiming for 10x growth demanded that kind of bold move. It forced us to rebuild our thinking, our team structure, and even our onboarding process from scratch.
Ironically, that leap didn’t just produce outsized revenue—it actually simplified the business. By focusing on fewer, higher-impact customers and a clearer value proposition, our margins improved, customer success became more strategic, and sales cycles shortened. We discarded the old roadmap and never looked back.
The biggest lesson? The 10x approach forces clarity. You stop asking, “How do we do what we’re already doing, just better?” and start asking, “What’s worth doing at all?” That reframing creates space for real innovation—and often, surprisingly, makes things less complicated, not more.
Patric Edwards, Founder & Principal Software Architect, Cirrus Bridge
How can you improve your business performance?
The idea of growing your brand or business by 10 times rather than making crawling differences goes against typical advice.
But sometimes making a big leap in terms of marketing or hiring may be just what you need.
In any case, pushing your business to the next level at a challenging pace compells you to apply yourself and think differently.
If these stories inspired you, be sure to leave a comment and keep an eye out for more content.
