What do you mean by “growth and scale” when you talk about your business?
I brought this up today because I was talking to someone about their coworking space and what they want to do with it.
They said, “I want to grow and scale, of course!”
After 15 minutes of conversation, I find out they don’t want to scale.
What they want is a sustainable business that makes them profit, doesn’t kill them, and has a constant flow of new customers.
There’s a big difference between growth and scale and a sustainable business that makes them profitable.
(I mean, I’m sure you can think of a recent industry example…!?!)
One of the reasons I think marketing is so sh*t nowadays is because everyone gets their venture capital money, and they’re obsessed with scaling and growth and not serving people.
Most of those crappy auto-cold email approaches are by immature companies scaling.
This week, I received a ‘personal’ email from the CEO of a company asking me to book a call. I replied, but I have not heard back.
The other topic that came up in a few places this week is the average age of a start-up founder—it’s around 40.
Being a start-up that makes it is not a young person’s game.
Do you want growth and scale, or do you want a sustainable business?
Both are fine, but you do decide with the language you’re using, and just because you are ‘in business’ does not mean you have to be talking about scaling all the time.
