I was recently talking to an entrepreneur that passed on an investment because it would not need yield the company at least a 10x growth opportunity. I told him those level of returns are reasonable when investing in small businesses under $5MM, but that he should consider lowering his ROI threshold when investing in larger companies. My logic was twofold: (1) bigger companies are harder to grow as quickly as small businesses, so the growth percentages will be lower; and (2) you can make “oodles” more money in dollars on the bigger company investment, even if the ROI was only 3x-5x. This post will help you know when to focus on percentage returns vs. dollar returns when assessing your investment opportunities.
