a unicorn like you're mentioning isn't linear. a 1% 1000x business probably can stop along the way when you reach a TC you're comfortable with, that you have a 1% of hitting that 1000x doesn't mean you don't have a 25% of hitting 2-4x with the same idea before. There's a lot of people who made their money by bootstraping business 0 to 100k, etc, and selling. (There's also people who center on buying 100k business and growing it to the million stage... and so on)