Sitemaps
Should Kids Follow in Our Founder Footsteps?
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
What Is Startup Funding?
Do Founders Deserve Their Profit?
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?
Will Investors Bail Me Out?
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
Founder Impostor Syndrome Never Goes Away

The Case for Growing Slowly

Wil Schroter

The Case for Growing Slowly

Growing slowly is the fastest way to build a sustainable startup.

From the outset that sounds like a contradiction, right? How could "growing slowly" and scaling possibly be congruent? They are if we take the time to understand that scaling is only possible once we've identified the assumptions in our business that are actually true.

As it happens, most Founders don't realize that "growing slowly" isn't about the long-term growth curve of a startup, it's about the near-term growth curve, the part where we are still trying to figure out exactly how this thing works.

Amplifying Mistakes With Acceleration

The case for acceleration is that we'll get to where we need to be faster. But that rests on one (often) broken assumption — that we're accelerating on the right path. Imagine we're in a car, and the car is pointed just 5 degrees off the centerline of the road. When we stomp on the gas, it's going to feel like we're getting to our destination faster, but what we're about to do is actually run ourselves clear off the highway and crash — just a lot faster.

What we lose sight of in our formative years is that we're still testing a boatload of assumptions at pretty much every possible level. We're trying to figure out if this is the right team, with the right product/market fit, with the right pricing, and optimized marketing. By the way, all of those are probably wrong right now.

The only thing we can truly mess up right now is accelerating the pace at which we've made horribly wrong assumptions. Most assumptions can often be tested at a well-paced jog without having to do a suicide sprint to know we're heading in the wrong direction. Time gives us the option to make a ton of adjustments to put us on the right path, whereas acceleration removes our ability to maintain control of our direction.

We Need Time to Make Mistakes

Let's assume that right this minute nearly every decision or assumption we have made is wrong, not because we're incompetent, but just because over time we'll find out what's true or not. When we start off by assuming we're wrong, it provides just the right amount of caution we need to focus on testing versus accelerating.

If we understand that most of our assumptions are wrong, then we want time to prove them right. We want to make our mistakes on a small scale before we've blown through not only capital but the most vulnerable equity we sold off to get it.

This isn't about being gun shy either, it's simply about being mature enough as a Founder to know that we need to let the product and the organization evolve a bit until we're ready to take it to the next level. It's about knowing that all of our assumptions are wrong, and the only way we can fix them is by having enough time to let them play out.

Time is a Lot of Money

Every time we over accelerate on a broken assumption, we exponentially waste money. Imagine the cost of hiring 10 engineers only to find out that what they were building wasn't what the market wanted. Or blasting through a few million of hard-raised capital on marketing only to find out our pricing was way off the mark.

We've got to isolate our assumptions and not only apply a cost metric of capital, but as importantly, a cost metric of time. It's so easy to be impatient, and let's face it, we're not known collectively as a patient bunch! But our impatience in the early days can be our most costly liability because we keep jumping down paths before we scope them out for potential traps.

On the other hand, there is a time to grow quickly — when we have taken the time to figure out WTF actually works! At that point, we begin to work on the opposite scale, whereby the cost of not scaling or capitalizing has a negative effect. But there's a 99% chance we aren't there yet. We have too many things unproven, and our lack of patience is probably at the top of that list!

In Case You Missed It

Why We Plan Our Entire Business in 5-Day Sprints The problem with creating longer planning cycles is that every additional day, week, or month decreases the visibility and accountability for a single day of work. There's an incredible amount of magic in having very little time to get things done.

Don’t Work Long Hours, Work Efficient Hours. As Founders, we should stop being "long hours" champions and instead start being proud of how much we can do in as few hours as possible.

How Much Should I Be Working? (podcast). Wil and Ryan take a deep dive into the benefits of thinking quality and not quantity when it comes to your weekly punch card.

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jessica jhon

But this thing can also ruin your startup. You need to pick an aggressive approach just like as mailpro https://www.mailpro.com/ to maintain your startup.

Reply3 years ago

Taylor Scrybe

Hey will I agree with you

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