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How We Secretly Lose Control of Our Startups
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The Evolution of Entry Level Workers
Assume Everyone Will Leave in Year One
Stop Listening to Investors
Was Mortgaging My Life Worth it?
What's My Startup Worth in an Acquisition?
When Our Ambition is Our Enemy
Are Startups in a "Silent Recession"?
The 5 Types of Startup Funding
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Michelle Glauser on Diversity and Inclusion
The Utter STUPIDITY of "Risking it All"
Committees Are Where Progress Goes to Die
More Money (Really Means) More Problems
Why Most Founders Don't Get Rich
Investors will be Obsolete
Why is a Founder so Hard to Replace?
We Can't Grow by Saying "No"
Do People Really Want Me to Succeed?
Is the Problem the Player or the Coach?
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The Value of Actually Getting Paid
Why do Founders Suck at Asking for Help?
Wait a Minute before Giving Away Equity
You Only Think You Work Hard
SMALL is the New Big — Embracing Efficiency in the Age of AI
The 9 Best Growth Agencies for Startups
This is BOOTSTRAPPED — 3 Strategies to Build Your Startup Without Funding
Never Share Your Net Worth
A Steady Hand in the Middle of the Storm
Risk it All vs Steady Paycheck
How About a Startup that Just Makes Money?
How to Recruit a Rockstar Advisor
Why Having Zero Experience is a Huge Asset
My Competitor Got Funded — Am I Screwed?
The Hidden Treasure of Failed Startups
If It Makes Money, It Makes Sense
Why do VCs Keep Giving Failed Founders Money?
$10K Per Month isn't Just Revenue — It's Life Support
The Ridiculous Spectrum of Investor Feedback
Startup CEOs Aren't Really CEOs
Series A, B, C, D, and E Funding: How It Works
Best Pitch Decks Ever: The Most Successful Fundraising Pitches You Need to Know
When to Raise Funds
Why Aren't Investors Responding to Me?
Should I Regret Not Raising Capital?
Unemployment Cases — Why I LOOOOOVE To Win Them So Much.
How Much to Pay Yourself
Heat-Seeking Missile: WePay’s Journey to Product-Market Fit — Interview with Rich Aberman, Co-Founder of Wepay
The R&D technique for startups: Rip off & Duplicate
Why Some Startups Win.
Chapter #1: First Steps To Validate Your Business Idea
Product Users, Not Ideas, Will Determine Your Startup’s Fate
Drop Your Free Tier
Your Advisors Are Probably Wrong
Growth Isn't Always Good
How to Shut Down Gracefully
How Does My Startup Get Acquired?
Can Entrepreneurship Be Taught?
How to Pick the Wrong Co-Founder
Staying Small While Going Big
Investors are NOT on Our Side of the Table
Who am I Really Competing Against?
Why Can't Founders Replace Themselves?
Actually, We Have Plenty of Time
Quitting vs Letting Go
How Startups Actually Get Bought
What if I'm Building the Wrong Product?
Are Founders Driven by Fear or Greed?
Why I'm Either Working or Feeling Guilty
Startup Financial Assumptions
Why Every Kid Should be a Startup Founder
We Only Have to be Right Once
If a Startup Sinks, Founders Go Down With it
Founder Success: We Need a Strict Definition of Personal Success
Is Quiet Quitting a Problem at Startup Companies?
Founder Exits are Hard Work and Good Fortune, Not "Good Luck"
Finalizing Startup Projections
All Founders are Beloved In Good Times
Our Startup Culture of Entitlement
The Bullshit Case for Raising Capital
How do We Manage Our Founder Flaws?
What If my plan for retirement is "never retire"?
Startup Failure is just One Chapter in Founder Life
6 Similarities between Startup Founders and Pro Athletes
All Founders Make Bad Decisions — and That's OK
Startup Board Negotiations: How do I tell the board I need a new deal?
Founder Sacrifice — At What Point Have I Gone Too Far?
Youth Entrepreneurship: Can Middle Schoolers be Founders?
Living the Founder Legend Isn't so Fun
Why Do VC Funded Startups Love "Fake Growth?"
How Should I Share My Wealth with Family?
How Many Deaths Can a Startup Survive?
This is Probably Your Last Success
Why Do We Still Have Full-Time Employees?
The Case Against Full Transparency
Should I Feel Guilty for Failing?
Always Take Money off the Table

Growth Isn't Always Good

Wil Schroter

Growth Isn't Always Good

We're so damn distracted by "growth" that we rarely ask ourselves what it is about growth that even matters.

You know who cares about growth? Our investors. The media. Our sewing circles of other Founders.

You know who cares about quality? Our team. Our customers. Our partners. You know, the people that we should be solely focused on.

There's a time and a place to focus on growth, but all too often our focus on growth comes directly at the expense of our focus on quality. And that's a dangerous place to be.

We need to have a discussion around making our startups better, not just bigger.

Size Doesn't Equal Quality

A couple of years ago, Basecamp Founders Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson said something that always stuck with me when talking about how big Basecamp could be.

They said, "Harvard doesn't try to be the biggest university, it tries to be the best university."

Students aren't killing themselves to get into Harvard because of how much growth it's had. They want the product because it's been eternally optimized to be the best. Basecamp wants to be the best company, not the biggest. I have to believe I'm not the only one that would prefer to be the next Harvard over some giant state school.

If we're going to "grow" anything, let's grow our quality. And if we're going to grow our quality, let's talk about where we want to grow quality.

Grow our Culture

You'll never hear a staff member say, "This company is so much better now that I don't know who half the staff is anymore!"

Growth rarely improves culture.

More staff means less personal connectivity across the organization. It means we ball into tighter individual circles. It makes it harder to create highly-specialized benefits because the cost of them becomes so great.

Our real challenge isn't adding staff — anyone can hire people — it's improving the connectivity amongst our staff and the feeling of inclusion. It's becoming better at listening and faster at responding to concerns. It's about creating more personal freedom, and, imagine this — more personal time.

Can we really say that in the past year we've increased the quality of our culture dramatically? That our staff is happier? That we have more freedom and personal benefits than ever before? If not, we're not really growing.

Grow our Product

Our customers don't care how much we've grown our company, they care how much we've improved our product. They care about whether or not we're making their lives better.

When’s the last time you said, "Oh man I can't wait to get the new iPhone since Apple grew 20% year-over-year."

As customers, we don't give a shit about a company's growth. We care about how the company creates great products for us.

Sometimes that requires growth to bolster customer support or increase the throughput of new features. Customers care about how much time and attention is being placed on the products they've come to care about.

Can we honestly say that our product has gotten dramatically better in the last year because we "re-organized the reporting structure of our management team?" Those things are important for structure, but let's not confuse them with having improved the product.

Our customers are still waiting for features they requested a year ago!

Grow our Happiness

Has our happiness grown Year-over-Year? Has hiring all those new staff members helped us sleep easier, exercise more, or spend more time with our loved ones?

Chances are, probably not. In fact, it's the opposite.

The reality is, our growth probably isn't making anyone happier. We're more stressed than we have ever been. Our staff is making more sacrifices and losing more of themselves by the day. We want to tell ourselves that it's toward some greater goal (the big payday!) but as every day goes by there's no concrete proof that we're getting closer to anything but our peak weight on the scale.

Imagine if we had said, "This year these are the 3 things that would make us dramatically happier." And then at the end of the year we could say, "Holy shit, you know what, we're so much happier than we were a year ago!" Wouldn't that feel like growth? How is that goal not critically important to us? Like, seriously, WTF are we doing here?

Our own startup creations, and the growth that comes with it, should be an engine for our happiness, not the root of our demise.

Grow for Goals, Not Size

All of this talk about growth overlooks one massive point — what if we're already the right size? Why can't we be 2 people in a room and be good with it? What does having 100 employees do that we absolutely cannot get done with 50?

How are we aligning our growth objectives, and do any of them map to us truly being a better company?

There's no reason we can't be the best company at the size we're at now, or heaven forbid, smaller. Maybe our goal should be getting to an equilibrium that allows us to maximize all of our goals without having to incur the "burden of growth."

Maybe it's time for us to change the answer to the question "How is your startup growing?" to focus on how it's becoming a better startup, not just a bigger one.

Wouldn't that be a fun update to share?

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