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FirstDomino Sym
A more connected way to decide

Push one domino.
Watch the entire
business move.

See the ripple before you commit.

Scroll to unfold the storyScroll down to advance. Scroll up to revisit.
Pressure-test the assumption.

A financial plan is a starting point. What has to be true for it to work?

01Your decision

FirstDomino evaluates
your key decision.

You are contemplating a decision to scale up your sales team to meet growth expectations.

Your financial plan calls for $5 million in revenue growth.

$20MCurrent revenue / year18Productive AEs$25MTarget / year
Will it work?
What your finance system tells you

The math gives you
5 sellers.

Historical revenue per seller$20M ÷ 18 = $1.11M

Total sellers to reach $25M$25M ÷ $1.11M ≈ 22.5

+5Round up to 23 sellers.
Add five to the current 18.

At 23 sellers, the no-constraint estimate is $25.56M / year.

Illustrative company · 24-month horizon · 90% annual retention · ~7.2% annual growth with no action. Historical revenue per seller includes existing customers; it is not new-sales quota.

02Before you commit

What if we could run different scenarios
around this hire—and see what happens?

Let’s pressure-test the plan.Can FirstDomino unlock
the gaps we’ve missed?

Same company. Three modeled hiring scenarios. Follow the hiring-only result while FirstDomino surfaces findings from the alternatives.

Scroll to begin Month 1.

03The dominoes fall

Month 1.
Costs arrive first.

01of 24 months

Scroll down to move the dominoes. Scroll up to replay.

Annualized revenueHiring-only result
Month 1 · What happens

Hiring has no impact on revenue yet. Payroll starts now; the five sellers need three months to ramp.

$20M$22M$24M$25MTodayM6M12M18M24
Modeled revenueAssumed path to $25M$25M target
Timing limit found by FirstDomino
Seller ramp

Salaries start now. Full productivity arrives in Month 3.

All hiring scenarios · three-month ramp
M1 · Seller ramp
$0.08MCumulative hiring investment

Chart: hiring-only revenue / year. The dotted path assumes reaching $25M. Right-hand findings name their scenario. Scroll to advance. Scroll back to rewind.

03 / after 24 monthsThe consequence

FirstDomino highlights
something interesting.

Keep the current team$22.99MAnnualized revenue at Month 24
Hire five more AEs$22.99MAnnualized revenue at Month 24
Same revenue.
$1.80M more in hiring costs.

Hiring and not hiring produce the same revenue in this model. The five extra sellers generate $0 in additional revenue over 24 months.

Both grow from $20M to $22.99M in annualized revenue. The target gap remains $2.01M. The $1.80M is cumulative hiring investment, not revenue.

04The hidden dominoes, identified

FirstDomino ran several scenarios.
A whole set of constraints were identified.

The same hire produced different findings. Read the constraints FirstDomino found, then turn over the remaining dominoes to see what needs attention next.

Constraint foundTiming limitPressure-test nextMeasured outcome
3 of 5 open. Findings come from the three reference hiring scenarios.
04 / connect the pictureThe causal canvas

Your plan was based on historical quota achievements.
Your business has changed, however.

Past performance does not guarantee today’s pipeline or capacity. Keep scrolling to reveal what has changed.

The simple plan
Hire five AEs
More sales capacity
More revenue?
Connected picture

Scroll to connect the picture. You can also use the slider. Once revealed, select a node to inspect it.

ACV = annual contract value. “/ mo” is a monthly flow of annual contract value; revenue is annualized. Dashed nodes show context, without an independently calibrated effect.

The conversation with your board

Make the risks visible.
Make the costs clear.

You present the risks of simply hiring five AEs to the board, and give them better visibility into the actual costs of pursuing the growth plan. Now compare four choices.

05Run it again, constraints addressed

What if you pushed
a different set of dominoes?

Same company. Same target.
Scroll through four choices. Then watch them come together.

OPTION 01 / 04No additional spending
DO NOTHING

Keep the current team

18 AEs. No new investment.

$22.99Mrevenue / year
at month 24$2.01Mbelow target
Annualized revenue · $M24 months
$20M$21M$22M$23M$24M$25M$25M targetTodayM6M12M18M241+234
This optionDo nothing
$0.00M24-month investment
$0.00M24-month net contribution
vs. doing nothing
Binding constraintDemand

The company keeps growing, but stays below the target.

Keep scrolling to move to the next option ↓
01–04All four options · one comparison

Four choices.
One view of the trade-offs.

More revenue is only half the decision. See what each move delivers—and what it costs.

Annualized revenue · $M24 months
$20M$21M$22M$23M$24M$25M$25M targetTodayM6M12M18M241 + 2 · $22.99M3 · $23.82M4 · $24.56M

1 + 2 follow the same revenue path. Hiring alone adds $1.80M in cost, with no extra revenue in this model.

1

Do nothing

Keep the current team

$22.99Mrevenue / year at month 24
24-month investment
$0.00M
24-month net contribution
$0.00M
2

Execute the plan

Hire five AEs

$22.99Mrevenue / year at month 24
24-month investment
$1.80M
24-month net contribution
−$1.80M
3

Plan + 1
recommendation

Add demand

$23.82Mrevenue / year at month 24
24-month investment
$2.52M
24-month net contribution
−$1.95M
4

Plan + 2
recommendations

Add demand and onboarding

$24.56Mrevenue / year at month 24
24-month investment
$3.15M
24-month net contribution
−$2.11M

Closer to $25M. At what cost?

Option 4 gets closest, but has the most negative net contribution over 24 months. None reaches the target within this horizon. The next decision is whether the extra growth justifies the investment.

Model & assumptions · inspect the basis of the story

This tour replays published reference results from the same model as the full sales-hiring experience. Open the experience to change assumptions and run scenarios.

A synthetic company with 90% annual gross retention. $300K nominal new-ARR quota × 70% attainment = $210K effective annual productivity per AE, used by the existing FD-GTM-001 cohort kernel. No-action revenue grows about 7.2% annually over this horizon. All result charts show annualized recognized revenue and the same $25M month-24 target. The historical revenue-per-AE estimate is deliberately naive: an installed revenue base is not new-sales quota.

Illustrative assumptions, not calibrated company data. All interventions have explicit costs: $180K per added AE/year, $30K/month per 40% demand lift, $20K/month plus $150K launch per 40% onboarding lift. These linear spending relationships are assumptions, not measured response curves. Returns compare cumulative incremental revenue × a 75% contribution margin less all intervention spending with no action over 24 months. They are undiscounted contribution returns, not EBITDA, cash-flow forecasts, enterprise value or observed actuals. Context nodes are not independently simulated. Outcomes are computed, not fitted to the earlier storyboard.

Model: sales-hiring-story-3.0 · Reference exported: 2026-10-17

Fingerprint: 62d2230fc7005cf6c6a11395b2d4504cd1e9e8b60e991cfe43e32dc63eb7d139

All four start at $20M revenue and 18 productive AEs. Net contribution = cumulative incremental revenue × 75% contribution margin − all intervention spending, relative to doing nothing. Undiscounted; not EBITDA, cash flow or enterprise value. These reference recommendations illustrate constraint relief, not a guaranteed investment return.

06Your next decision

Now push
your first domino.

Take the next step into a working experience. Change the assumptions. Inspect the canvas. Test the trade-offs.

Growth

Improve sales hiring

Can more sellers create the growth you need?

Explore the experience ↗Cost & capacity

Find the safer $15M

What happens to the business when cost comes out?

Explore the experience ↗
Bring your decision ↗Inside the model →
How would this differ for your company?

The starting demand, retention, capacity and costs change the answer. These two experiences use explicit synthetic companies. A broader archetype library, imports and editable company models are the platform vision.

Discuss your company’s decision →