How About Not Going Balls To The Wall

Or a different way to build your business so you don’t sacrifice everything else in the process.

Not all that long ago I was gung ho about going all in. If it ain’t growth I don’t want it. I’m sure I wrote about it on Quora (there are over 400 answers there. If you find it then let me know).

I also dipped my toes into the growth hacking waters by writing a few pieces on it. I’ll be the first to admit — It was mostly regurgitated jargon.

What can I say? I was young and it was (is) cool to talk about growth hacking. There’s no faster way to get clicks and pageviews.

Whatever.

Recently, I got sick. I was so messed up I had to check myself into a hosptial. I was having joint pain, shaking like a leaf, and my skin felt like I’d spent a few hours the natural hotsprings of Tepako.

If I would’ve waited any longer then I may not be writing this article right now. My partner saved me by asking me (read that as forcing me with threats of endless retribution) to go to the hospital. Good women FTW.

I digress.

So here I was in the hospital thinking about how I was stressing the fuck out because I wanted growth at all costs for KyLeads. I was up at all hours of the night, not eating enough, barely exercising, and other less than ideal activities.

What am I doing it for? I guess it was to be featured in the latest article on StartUp Grind. Who knows? I was pushing my team just as hard and I’m sure they’re on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

Every time you open Entrepreneur, or Forbes, or TechCrunch there’s another story about how this guy made a million dollars or that one just got fifty bazillion in funding.

Oh yea, they did it in their dorm — in less than a year.

Everyone always forgets to remember those stories are outliers. It’s the survivorship bias in action.

To fuel growth at all costs, you’ll likely take Venture capital because heaven forbid you grow organically and reinvest your profits.

If you take venture capital, then the priority of your company switches from being whatever it was yesterday to whatever moves that growth needle.

Your goal ceases to be to change the world and becomes an IPO or a lucrative acquisition.

I mean, look at Facebook. It started well with a mission to connect humans. Now, it’s little more than a place for advertisers (I use it so I’m keenly aware) to harvest your information and create eerily targeted ads. They went balls to the wall and chased growth at all costs.

Now, they’re floundering in one scandal after another. Hell, there’s a delete Facebook campaign going on. It won’t work. The underlying attitude behind it is what matters.

How would you feel if there was a #DeleteYourApp movement sweeping the world? That would suck wouldn’t it?

Chase growth at all cost long enough and you may find out how it feels.

But, there’s a silver lining. In certain sectors, it’s not so much about growth at all costs anymore. Investors have been burned by companies like Zenefits growing too fast. They’re more wary of forcing startups to grow at all costs.

Wary in a relative sense of couse. Intercom just raised $125 million dollars. That’s after they raised $50 million and said they wouldn’t need to raise further rounds to reach profitability.

Whatever.

Maybe they’ll crash and burn. Maybe they won’t.

I’m more interested in the founders who’re doing it like real businesses. You know, using their profits to grow the brand as quickly as that’ll allow. They still manage to keep their sanity and not fall into questionable practices which seem all to common at venture backed firms (I’m looking at you Uber).

Companies like Buffer which has an annual run rate of $16MM (May 2018).

Companies like ConvertKit which is doing about $12MM a year (May 2018).

Aweber is clocking over $30MM. They’ve been around since 1999.

Hotjar is just north of $6MM a year.

Check Indiehackers for tons more bootstrapped companies.

You should give it everything you reasonably can. That doesn’t mean you should do it to the exclusion of the rest of your life.

Yes — go hard.

No, don’t chase growth at all costs.

No, don’t work 20 hours a day.

No, don’t lose sight of the forest for the trees.

Balls to the wall isn’t the only way. Don’t move fast and break shit. Move a bit more deliberately. Let’s try quick and steady so you can build for the next 20 years if you like.

It’s what I plan to do at KyLeads. What about you?