Paul, thank you for this wonderful perspective. I can’t even formulate the words to explain how deeply so many of the points you made were in line and relatable to mine on the whole ‘scale up’ trend. In my business, I really enjoy what I do, the money is great, and the freedom is unparalleled. I believe if I wanted to scale up and deal with what comes with it(good, bad, or indifferent), I could scale up as I have been in my particular industry since 2009, full time. I just don’t want to and never have. I’ve completed all the goals I wanted, except one, and I’m working on that now and will be for a while as it’s the perfect ‘period’ to the entire life of that business. And that is my why for not scaling up. Contentment. That word is looked down upon, but it is right there with gratitude for me. I know I’m far from lazy, I don’t lack ambition or any of those things buzz-word gurus try to suggest is what’s ‘holding you back from greatness’. Greatness is subjective anyway. And money and the pursuit of it is just not every business owners number one priority in life. Neither is following. I am happy where I am and it is so good to read others are too and that there are alternatives to the hustle-your-way-to-the-top mentalities that are rampant! Much respect and many blessings to you and your family!
Hi Kris, great to hear the article resonated with you. What's funny is that even though I wrote this years ago, my business has continued to grow even though I haven't been trying to grow it. If anything, I've just been focussing on making my business more efficient and this has resulted in growth as a bi-product.
Great post, regardless of 2018 date, Finally an article that is in sync to my business desire of "no interest in scaling" - conducting a professional, efficient and effective micro business is more than enough for me.
Amen. I just went to hell and back scaling up. Spent a whack of cash hiring, training and firing people (hundreds of thousands) that did not give two hoots about helping growing my growing....let alone cover their own wages. Massive time abuse, lying, and them becoming professional online surfers/shoppers. Get this. My business actually went steadily backwards through a combination of me being distracted with people issues, hiring what turned out to be a compulsive liar that cold called a chain of drugstore and sat on hold to make it look like she was making cold calls. So instead of real companies that could do business with us, she was making fake calls. By the time I got web browsing trackers, phone trackers AND then realized that I had to double check phone numbers called....damage was done. After two years of scaling up and hell, I then spent a great amount of time "scaling down" and firing the bad apples. Rebuilding my business account by account has almost been harder than building it the first time. In the beginning, I was enjoying myself working from home and creating great growth. Rebuilding my business meant massive amounts of work on top of all the mental baggage that came from those traumatizing couple of years. Cause not only did you have to go through that, you then have to work yourself through all the self blame and new doubts in your ability because of all the bad things that happened. In case you wonder, I am not a negative Nelly either or a poor manager or x or x. I am super positive and know how much that affects life and business. Even all that mental training could not prepare me for the mental shit show that happened after the scale up and scale down. So here we are, a few years later. We have a long sales cycle so two/three years later I have finally turned the ship around and I am getting back to where I had my business was before I thought growing would actually produce more revenue. Business owner beware. Paying people doesn't necessarily mean more revenue. You can get yourself in a big money jam. Fortunately, I had money in the bank and a great revenue coming in that covered majority of the "scaling up" investment. If not, the business would have needed outside cash or gone under. I also do have a great and scalable business idea. The problem is getting pay check takers to work. That is a somewhat astonishing and traumatizing process. I will admit that I was definitely naive there. Since it had been a long time since I was an employee, I had lost touch with what it means to be an employee. And no, I was not this jaded during the "scaling upprocess" only now. The reason I share you ask? It's been just over a year since I got rid of the demon employee and six months since I finished scaling down. Life is finally getting back to normal, however, I now find myself sitting here googling "Why I don't want to "scale" my business looking to see if I am the only flawed person that does not want to take on the World anymore. I am an achiever x 20, dreamer x 20 and find myself scratching my head and googling to see what is wrong with me. I am also very self driven and confident. I landed up here and starting typing out a comment before I knew what I was doing. Why? Probably because I was so happy to find another business owner and article about not wanting to scale. Secondly, for anyone reading this...maybe it helps you in some small way or manner. There is not enough talk about the real stuff, the scaling downs, the business failures due to spoon fed ideas, the massive headaches that employees give you. The lost of joy in what you once loved doing. The mornings where you hate your own company, don't want to show up and then realize that you finally need to get it over with and fire the next bad apple that is poisoning your work place. The one that you dreaded firing after all the talks, discipline procedures and chances. Now think about this a bit more. When did all the talk of scaling up come. http://Dot.com bubble and the rise of venture capital. Yep. Let's not forget for a moment, which I don't think people realize, all these culture, core values and scaling up books are likely created 1) to sell books to every eager entrepreneur 2) to speak to artificially funded (venture capital) companies that have the goal, time and financial means to worry about this. 3) By professors that have no actual hands on experience. Golden nugget here. I finally found a book, little to late, that reassured me of all the wrongs with this new unicorn generation of business. It's called "No B.S. Ruthless Management of People & profits." Sound jaded? Yep, however, I find the truth often does sound jaded. Puppy dogs, rainbows and unicorn companies and much more exciting to speak about. Very few people speak about the unpoular stuff. That doesn't sell books or get you on The New York Times Best Seller List does it? Unless you have gone to hell and back, you are likely not ready for this book. I wouldn't have been. I was all scaling up, unicorns and making a great workplace for people to thrive. Had I read this prior to my journey, I would have had the knowledge and avoided costly mistakes. That being said, I think I would have dismissed him as an angry bitter author. Now, with the battle wounds, I know what he shares to be the absolute hard cold truth on many subjects of creating and growing a company while hiring people. See now let's get down to the numbers. Hiring, training, keeping employees takes a lot of time and capital. It they work out...great. If they don't, you need to write that off, take your lessons and try again. So now I am looking at more autmoated ways to grow, however, at the end of the day a business has margins. If I can make 10% profit after paying myself without the headaches of scaling up, why would I take 10% profits with the risk, headaches and loss of joy that comes from scaling up. Ego would be one answer to that. It's a lot more fun to have a fancy space and employees when people ask about your business. Honestly though, tune your ego out and think about it. What makes you happy? What are your goals? Really, what are your goals? Do you really really want that massive company or is that your ego speaking? I find people, me included, wanted the big business because it means more money and freedom. It can. Often it means same margins and headaches. What freedom? I have never felt right or that it would be right for my business to show up late and take excessive amounts of holidays. What kind of example does that set for your employees. How hard are they actually working when you are not there. Again, yes I could get back on the horse and try again. That being said, I have learned a lot of lessions. It would be ignorant to run head first right back into the situation. I have also learned a lot about myself and what I do and don't want. Once in a while you can find another business owner or manage that actually has the gall to speak truth. They end up echoing my notes above. Anyways, forgive me if I sound jaded. It will take a while to recover from all the airy fairy concepts that are forced down our throats as entrepreneurs. Either way, I feel happy that I shared a little bit of much needed honesty when it comes to the scaling up conversation. Long overdue!
Wow, thanks for sharing your story in such detail and honesty. I really resonate with what you're saying especially the part about how hiring more people does not guarantee more revenue. Another great resource to check out is Company of One by Paul Jarvis all about this growth issue.
So Paul, I had to respond back to you and thank you. After you mentioned the name of the book, Company For One, I read the sample from Amazon. I immediately bought it and I am reading it with a hunger that this avid reader rarely feels anymore. My mind is blown. I am so happy to have finally found a group of people that DO NOT belong to the scaling up and venture capital crowd. Everything I thought and my doubts/experience about scaling up are being confirmed in this book. I am also very happy to learn it's not just me that has experienced these less than stellar results with scaling up. I was pretty confident after constantly reviewing everything in my mind, however, there was still a lurking doubt. Was it me? What did I do wrong? What should I have done different. Which are healthy questions, however, if you never hear anything but growth success stories...these questions turn into doubt and loss of hard earned/built confidence. I have always questioned this type of growth and the benefits that everyone touted but proceeded to take the obvious path for any business owner....massive growth. I also didn't really have full choice due to majority owner business partners that wanted massive growth. A different story altogether, that for confidentiality sake, I will leave right there. Turns out again....this scaling up is one large smoke show. What makes me so mad is that no one speaks about the facts and all you ever hear and find in apple podcasts is growth growth growth. No one speaks about the risk in putting those dollars out, how hard it is to manage people and their continous people problems, loosing the love for what you do because of said employees and amazing amount of stress and responsibility that comes with scaling up. I JUST LOVE THIS BOOK. Everything I have thought/wondered/questioned/experienced ends up being discussed in this book. This book is becoming my healing balm for a very bad period of business and is my catalyst to questioning this insane GROWTH CULT. It is also becoming by catalyst/pivot point for change. My apologies if I seem like some crazy internet gal. The funny thing is that I am not. Prior to your post I don't think I have ever ever left a comment. I just wanted to let you know that I am so very thankful for your post and your guidance towards this book. They say when the student is ready...the teacher shall appear. Well it's happened. Life is funny that way. Thanks so very much!!!!!!!!! Honestly, this post has dramatically changed my life and business. THANK YOU!!!!!
Wow, thank you for the lovely comment. I'm very pleased to have been able to help. Much credit should go to Paul Jarvis, the author of the book as he was the one that introduced me to these ideas as well. I am in the same boat and these ideas have had a dramatic impact on my outlook and goals moving forward. If you'd like to connect, a lot of the members of my Slack group also feel the same way. You can learn more here: https://paulminors.com/products/membership/
You are welcome. I might just share these words with Paul down the line also. Not sure if he has a blog or not. I will check it out. As a creator I just know how appreciated it is when people comment on your podcasts, blogs etc. No one commenting on something you worked hard on can be tough. Anyways, thanks so much. I plan to check out your podcast and work as well. Take care!
Hi Paul! Excellent and thanks for the resource. Although I am done with the "scaling up" brainwash, I still find myself falling into, feeling guilty and thinking big is better and the only way to "success". I am excited to check that book out. Honesty is often uncomfortable and not as fun to read. That being said, if I am frustrated by the lack of reality and truth being communicated to entrepreneurs...maybe I should walk the talk and share the uncomfortable truth. Thanks so much for the great article and for listening to my rant.
I miss the Hungry Years, when dreams were all we had for Free. From my early 20s I have been self employed and got on the 14 hr a day merry go round to riches, just so we could be driving a new car each year, on a lease that was worthless to my young families well being and so we had a nice house on the river. Wrong ?? It was a pipe dream. Wish I had read your article in 1985.
Being at a somehow same level I totally agree. The only reason I want to scale a bit more is to cover the income of my wife so she can stay at home as well! Besides that I'm also not having a plan for whatever comes in 3-5 years. We are currently happy, I can work from home (almost a year already) and it's infinite times more satisfying than working a regular job. You don't need to hustle like GaryV and build the next Snapchat company - staying small is actually what gives so much freedom and peace in life to do all the things that are important to you.
Hi Simon, thanks for your comment.Your plan to scale to cover your wife's income sounds great. But as you say, when you reach a point where you are financially stable and still have freedom and enjoy life, then there's no reason to scale if you don't want to.
Paul, my dream is to acumulate enough money so as to be able to live from the rents and interests and, therefore, with very little stress in a future time. But to reach that goal I must grow my actual business and generate certain excess to be saved. Perhaps it is worth to suffer some stress in the short term in order to be less stressed in the long run. What do you think?
Paul, my dream is to acumulate enough money so as to be able to live from the rents and interests and, therefore, with very little stress in a future time. But to reach that goal I must grow my actual business and generate certain excess to be saved. Perhaps it is worth to suffer some stress in the short term in order to be less stressed in the long run. What do you think?
Hi Julio, absolutely, you need to work hard in the beginning. It's about reaching a point where you are financially secure and are still maintaining an enjoyable lifestyle. And when you've reached that point, you don't have to feel like you need to keep growing or scaling.
Paul - I agree with you ,scaling up and increasing the company's turnover may not be the answer to all your questions. You are also right in observing - that - as business increases in size / turnover in most cases the associated profitability decreases..... however i must also add that companies that are in the intellectual capital business or in a niche ( such as yours) can afford to remain small , while for a lot of other companies who manufacture or offer standardised products / services -size and the traction that comes with it does make a difference . cheers !
I totally agree with you. Making money often becomes a competition with no value to self-improvement. I do what I do because I enjoy it. I try to pursue projects that will allow me to learn more and to help people. Growing is a two ways street, a continuous exchange of values. Of course, money is a necessity but it is should not be regarded as a goal, it is a tool.
Totally agree! I think it depends a lot on why you want to build a business in the first place. A lot of us (myself included) started building businesses for freedom, flexibility, etc. Often the best way to do that is staying lean, efficient, and profitable.
More moving parts means more inefficiency. It can also mean more income, but if the goal is maximizing leisure time rather than profit, scale becomes a lot more challenging.
Paul - I agree with you ,scaling up and increasing the company's turnover may not be the answer to all your questions. You are also right in observing - that - as business increases in size / turnover in most cases the associated profitability decreases..... however i must also add that companies that are in the intellectual capital business or in a niche ( such as yours) can afford to remain small , while for a lot of other companies who manufacture or offer standardised products / services -size and the traction that comes with it does make a difference . cheers !
-Kris, Arkansas
Rebuilding my business account by account has almost been harder than building it the first time. In the beginning, I was enjoying myself working from home and creating great growth. Rebuilding my business meant massive amounts of work on top of all the mental baggage that came from those traumatizing couple of years. Cause not only did you have to go through that, you then have to work yourself through all the self blame and new doubts in your ability because of all the bad things that happened. In case you wonder, I am not a negative Nelly either or a poor manager or x or x. I am super positive and know how much that affects life and business. Even all that mental training could not prepare me for the mental shit show that happened after the scale up and scale down. So here we are, a few years later. We have a long sales cycle so two/three years later I have finally turned the ship around and I am getting back to where I had my business was before I thought growing would actually produce more revenue.
Business owner beware. Paying people doesn't necessarily mean more revenue. You can get yourself in a big money jam. Fortunately, I had money in the bank and a great revenue coming in that covered majority of the "scaling up" investment. If not, the business would have needed outside cash or gone under. I also do have a great and scalable business idea. The problem is getting pay check takers to work. That is a somewhat astonishing and traumatizing process. I will admit that I was definitely naive there. Since it had been a long time since I was an employee, I had lost touch with what it means to be an employee. And no, I was not this jaded during the "scaling upprocess" only now.
The reason I share you ask? It's been just over a year since I got rid of the demon employee and six months since I finished scaling down. Life is finally getting back to normal, however, I now find myself sitting here googling "Why I don't want to "scale" my business looking to see if I am the only flawed person that does not want to take on the World anymore. I am an achiever x 20, dreamer x 20 and find myself scratching my head and googling to see what is wrong with me. I am also very self driven and confident. I landed up here and starting typing out a comment before I knew what I was doing. Why? Probably because I was so happy to find another business owner and article about not wanting to scale. Secondly, for anyone reading this...maybe it helps you in some small way or manner.
There is not enough talk about the real stuff, the scaling downs, the business failures due to spoon fed ideas, the massive headaches that employees give you. The lost of joy in what you once loved doing. The mornings where you hate your own company, don't want to show up and then realize that you finally need to get it over with and fire the next bad apple that is poisoning your work place. The one that you dreaded firing after all the talks, discipline procedures and chances.
Now think about this a bit more. When did all the talk of scaling up come. http://Dot.com bubble and the rise of venture capital. Yep. Let's not forget for a moment, which I don't think people realize, all these culture, core values and scaling up books are likely created 1) to sell books to every eager entrepreneur 2) to speak to artificially funded (venture capital) companies that have the goal, time and financial means to worry about this. 3) By professors that have no actual hands on experience.
Golden nugget here. I finally found a book, little to late, that reassured me of all the wrongs with this new unicorn generation of business. It's called "No B.S. Ruthless Management of People & profits." Sound jaded? Yep, however, I find the truth often does sound jaded. Puppy dogs, rainbows and unicorn companies and much more exciting to speak about. Very few people speak about the unpoular stuff. That doesn't sell books or get you on The New York Times Best Seller List does it? Unless you have gone to hell and back, you are likely not ready for this book. I wouldn't have been. I was all scaling up, unicorns and making a great workplace for people to thrive. Had I read this prior to my journey, I would have had the knowledge and avoided costly mistakes. That being said, I think I would have dismissed him as an angry bitter author. Now, with the battle wounds, I know what he shares to be the absolute hard cold truth on many subjects of creating and growing a company while hiring people.
See now let's get down to the numbers. Hiring, training, keeping employees takes a lot of time and capital. It they work out...great. If they don't, you need to write that off, take your lessons and try again. So now I am looking at more autmoated ways to grow, however, at the end of the day a business has margins. If I can make 10% profit after paying myself without the headaches of scaling up, why would I take 10% profits with the risk, headaches and loss of joy that comes from scaling up. Ego would be one answer to that. It's a lot more fun to have a fancy space and employees when people ask about your business. Honestly though, tune your ego out and think about it. What makes you happy? What are your goals? Really, what are your goals? Do you really really want that massive company or is that your ego speaking? I find people, me included, wanted the big business because it means more money and freedom. It can. Often it means same margins and headaches. What freedom? I have never felt right or that it would be right for my business to show up late and take excessive amounts of holidays. What kind of example does that set for your employees. How hard are they actually working when you are not there. Again, yes I could get back on the horse and try again. That being said, I have learned a lot of lessions. It would be ignorant to run head first right back into the situation. I have also learned a lot about myself and what I do and don't want.
Once in a while you can find another business owner or manage that actually has the gall to speak truth. They end up echoing my notes above. Anyways, forgive me if I sound jaded. It will take a while to recover from all the airy fairy concepts that are forced down our throats as entrepreneurs. Either way, I feel happy that I shared a little bit of much needed honesty when it comes to the scaling up conversation. Long overdue!
From my early 20s I have been self employed and got on the 14 hr a day merry go round to riches, just so we could be driving a new car each year, on a lease that was worthless to my young families well being and so we had a nice house on the river.
Wrong ??
It was a pipe dream.
Wish I had read your article in 1985.
We are currently happy, I can work from home (almost a year already) and it's infinite times more satisfying than working a regular job.
You don't need to hustle like GaryV and build the next Snapchat company - staying small is actually what gives so much freedom and peace in life to do all the things that are important to you.
however i must also add that companies that are in the intellectual capital business or in a niche ( such as yours) can afford to remain small , while for a lot of other companies who manufacture or offer standardised products / services -size and the traction that comes with it does make a difference .
cheers !
More moving parts means more inefficiency. It can also mean more income, but if the goal is maximizing leisure time rather than profit, scale becomes a lot more challenging.
however i must also add that companies that are in the intellectual capital business or in a niche ( such as yours) can afford to remain small , while for a lot of other companies who manufacture or offer standardised products / services -size and the traction that comes with it does make a difference .
cheers !