Why Most Brands Stall at Eight Figures (and How to Break Through)

Most consumer brands hit a wall somewhere around the eight-figure mark.

Not because the product stops working. Not because the market dries up. But because the very playbook that got them to $10M is the same one holding them back from $50M.

Many folks tend to fall into the trap of assuming that what worked will continue to work, but each stage of growth demands new strategies, new people, and often, new technology. 

If you don’t change your playbook, you stall out. Period.

Here’s how I’ve thought about these stages as the SVP of ecommerce at Ilia Beauty (and previously growth and strategy at Bobbie and Common Thread Collective). 

The most common trap is over-reliance on paid media. Yes, paid is the fastest way to get from zero to eight figures. But if it’s your only growth lever, the ceiling comes quickly, and it’s extremely difficult to break through.

Here’s the mental model I use (courtesy of Taylor Holiday, the CEO of Common Thread Collective): think of revenue like a cake.

Flip that cake upside down—put paid at the base—and the entire structure collapses. 

So how do you avoid that?

Scaling beyond eight figures is about stacking the layers in the right order and resourcing the opportunities that move you forward. 

A $20M brand can’t keep flooring the gas on paid and expect to break into the next stage. At some point, you have to shift resources toward organic growth, customer experience, and product development—or risk burning out before you break through.

Scaling comes down to knowing when to resource the opportunity in front of you. 

Paid might get you to $10M, but it won’t get you to $100M.

Organic might feel scrappy in the beginning, but it compounds into the flywheels that push you forward. 

And without a pipeline of innovation and repeat customers, the whole cake collapses.

At each stage, the balance between paid, organic, and repeat customers shifts—and so do the core investments that set you up for the next level:

Most brands get here by leaning heavily on paid media. That works for a while—but it’s also where the cracks start to show.

This is the moment to start building the other layers of your cake. 

My take? 

Organic acquisition should be baked into your DNA from day one, even if it feels scrappy: affiliate placements, micro- to mid-tier influencers, founder-led product seeding, and PR pitching. 

Think of Bobbie (the infant formula brand I worked at). 

In the early days, the founder herself was emailing every mommy blogger she could find. That scrappy outreach landed Bobbie in every relevant article and seeded the brand’s awareness long before a PR agency was on payroll.

On the repeat customer side, you need a steady pipeline of innovation. You can grow fast on one hero product, but without future launches, momentum stalls fairly quickly. That’s because products have their own lifecycle.

Once they reach the end of their life, you either need to be prepared to excite customers with something new or have innovated your current hero product so that it's better.

Lastly, one critical investment at this stage? Data infrastructure and your first CX team. 

If you don’t understand your customers deeply—and serve them well—you won’t be able to sustain growth into the next phase.

Here’s where the jump from DTC-only to omnichannel begins. Most brands will add a second key channel—often a retailer like Sephora, Ulta, or a department store.

It’s tempting to think retail is an instant brand awareness booster.

The truth is: retailers now expect you to drive awareness. They have finite resources, and if you’re launching alongside someone like Hailey Bieber’s Rhode, guess who’s getting prioritized? 

This is why I suggest not jumping into retail before this point, because your ad investment must grow in tandem with your distribution.

If you aren’t ready to increase ad spend and push your own awareness in retail, then you’re not ready for this channel. Fortunately, there are alternative channels you can prioritize instead.

On the organic side, this is when influencer and PR strategies need to mature. Macro creators, editorial affiliates, PR events, and even early corporate comms start to matter. It’s not just about product seeding anymore—it’s about earning media that drives meaningful lifts in awareness.

Repeat customers also shift from simply launching new products to mapping the customer journey.

Remember how I mentioned the importance of CX and data infrastructure before this stage? This is exactly why. 

Because now you’re starting to ask questions like: 

The key investment here is in measurement. Audience research, incrementality testing, and brand lift studies will show you what’s actually driving awareness and sales—so you don’t cut spend on channels that are quietly fueling your growth.

At this stage, distribution is no longer DTC + one retailer. You’re adding Amazon, rolling out to multiple retailers, or piloting international expansion. Surprise—the playbook has to evolve again!

Paid can’t just be acquisition ads. It has to become channel-differentiated, full-funnel media. Amazon ads look different from Sephora ads. Retail media networks, TikTok, and Meta all have different strategies, creatives, and targeting.

And here, organic takes another leap: celebrity partnerships, experiential events, and cultural moments that create talkability. These organic moments are required to cut through the noise and cement your brand as more than just a product. 

Finally, your repeat targets shift to focus on loyalty experiences and services. How do you make customers feel like part of something bigger, not just a transaction? You’re now building community and establishing branded moments that extend far beyond your original product from the early days.

The core investment here is in data. 

Market research, audience segmentation, competitor benchmarking—without democratized data, you’re flying blind at nine figures.

By now, growth is coming from international markets. 

And the challenge shifts from “how do we sell more?” to “how do we build global belonging?”

Paid becomes about top-of-funnel brand awareness, with the goal of introducing the brand to entirely new cultures and audiences.

Organic requires a localized strategy: regional influencers, local press, and campaigns that feel native to the culture, not just translations of your U.S. playbook.

Repeat is about fluidity. 

Customers might buy in-store in Paris, online in Toronto, and through Amazon in Sydney. Your job is to make every touchpoint seamless while reinforcing a consistent brand identity.

The critical investment here is in people.

 International expansion fails without local teams and localized media operations. You can’t “remote control” brand building across borders.

The irony of scale is that more resources don’t always make growth easier. 

At every stage, keep your teams connected to the mission. Encourage ownership. And remove bureaucracy wherever possible. 

And despite every stage being so different in terms of focus, there are always foundational pieces to every growth strategy. Here are five non-negotiables, in my opinion: 

1. Start with the product: A great product is still the strongest driver of organic growth. It’s what gets people talking and sharing. The best word-of-mouth campaigns start with something worth talking about.

2. Listen to your customers—and use what they tell you: Feedback loops should inform your product pipeline and refinement. The earlier you build this muscle, the easier it is to sustain growth through new launches and innovation.

3. Treat brand marketing as a growth lever, not a luxury: Brand is the multiplier. It makes every dollar you spend perform harder. Whether that’s storytelling, creative consistency, or community-building, it’s what turns transactions into loyalty.

4. Resource the opportunity: You can’t capture what you don’t resource. If you want a new channel to work, dedicate people, budget, and systems to it. Growth comes from intentional investment.

5. Stay adaptable: What worked two years ago might not work today. Consumer behavior shifts fast. The most resilient brands are the ones that build adaptability into their DNA—experimenting, iterating, and reinventing before they’re forced to.

Remember, paid alone won’t get you to 8-figures. Every stage of growth requires a new layer—and new discipline. 

Here’s a chart to summarize what I mean:

The brands that keep growing are the ones that know when to flip the page, resource the opportunity, and build for what’s next.