Understanding the Growth at All Costs Mindset

'Growth at all costs' mindset may kill your startup 💀 Back in the days (2020-2023), the typical advice you'd hear as a VC-backed startup was "spend more". The main approach was to be maniacally focused on growth and grabbing a bigger market share. The founders were acting like hungry hyenas pouring money into everything that brings growth, overhiring, overspending, and doubling down on untested channels that might bring growth. Growth, growth, growth! (in Steve Ballmer's "developers, developers, developers" voice) 🌱 In the last couple of months, I've seen a lot of startups going down because of this mentality. However, the 'growth' is not the problem. The uncontrolled growth and constant stepping on the gas pedal without a working engine is. It's really easy to get into this GAAC (Growth at all costs) mindset before even remotely figuring out, be blinded by the Silicon Valley stories about raising hundreds of millions in Series A, and hope that VC money will always be here to save your company when the things go south. If you don't figure it out fast, if you don't have control over the direction you are going, and if you are not obsessed with building a real business the chances of failing are pretty high nowadays. In June 2023, we were 3 months away from bankruptcy, burning $35-40K per month. It was a wake-up call for us. 🔹 Lesson learned: Keep it lean until you are pretty positive that you know what you are doing, and you have a pretty good feeling and data informing you that you are ready to scale, burn, and double down on growth. 2024 is the year of predictable and controlled growth with a focus on profitability. Even for VC-backed startups (that are in the process of raising their next round). 📈

The “grow at all costs” mentality is a red flag. You can only move as fast as the slowest member on your team. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way. As a change agent, it’s critical to get your team on board. You can’t force them to change at your pace. You need to understand what motivates them and inspire them to move with you. I learned this firsthand in a Director role when I drove change, pushed for results, and hit the biggest bonus of my career. But as soon as I was removed from the role, the changes I’d implemented stopped. Why? Because the team wasn’t bought in. You can push for growth, but you have to understand the cost of that growth. Without buy-in, you risk losing the ability to empower and enable your team. When you do that, you limit scalability and efficiency. Growing at all costs doesn’t work. You need to grow with a plan and a strategy that includes bringing your team with you. If you’re too forceful or domineering, you’ll find that the cost of growth might mean you no longer have a business to grow. Grow with your team, or you won’t grow at all. It’s that simple.

Growth, Growth, Growth! But at what cost? 🧐 Whoever can grow the fastest, win the most market share, or dominate the conversation becomes the gold star winner. But let's ask ourselves, is growth at all costs really the answer? In our haste to scale at breakneck speeds, we sometimes overlook the finer details. The very essence of who we are serving and why. We miss out on cultivating genuine connections with our audience and understanding their needs and pain points. In reality, this "growth at all costs" mindset can lead to disillusionment among customers and teams alike. Misalignment between our objectives and the customer's needs can actually stall growth rather than fuel it. So let's take a step back. Focus on aligning our goals with those of our customers. Let's build meaningful relationships that foster trust and inspire loyalty. #leadership #marketingstrategy #customersfirst