What does it take for a company to hit $1 billion in sales? It’s a rare feat, says David Thomson, who spent three years studying exactly what it takes for a startup to reach that milestone, and published the results in his new book Blueprint to a Billion.

In fact, just 387 of 7,454 U.S.-based corporations (5 percent) that went public after 1980 had achieved that magic revenue threshold by 2004 (another 49 firms hit a billion in sales last year). All of them followed a similar plan for growth, Thomson found….

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