Growth at All Cost vs Health at All Cost

People leading and working in a startup have a typical quality.

They are problem-solvers.?

NATURAL problem-solvers.?

A startup might not hire people for their past experiences or specialised skills but will pay the top dollar for their problem-solving, go-getter or never-say-die attitude.?

And this applies ten-folds to a BOOTSTRAPPED startup.?

Every morning, you are presented with a plethora of common challenges ranging from hiring, leadership, sales, finances, or urgent fire-fights that appear from nowhere, regularly and repeatedly.??

*Yes, I know I am putting urgent fire-fights in common challenges. Ask anyone working in an early-stage startup, and they will agree.??

But the most challenging of all startup problems is figuring out which challenge, problem or issue to prioritise first.?

Just imagine for a moment - You have been pulled in various opposite directions by different teams, just like any typical day.?

You have been presented with multiple problems.?

Your Email, Slack, and WhatsApp are screaming your name with every notification.??

But like a veteran entrepreneur that will make Paul Graham and Naval Ravikant proud.

You resist this pull.

You resist this urge to solve the first easy problem coming your way.?

You delay the gratification you are about to get by slaying one problem to another.

…but instead, you do a completely different thing.??

You consciously, deliberately say.

NO to" urgent" and YES to "important ".?

Enough of daydreaming. Let's get back to reality.?Because this happens rarely.?

The truth is, figuring out the most critical problem to focus on is equivalent to the Hillary Step on the Everest route.?

Mike Michalowicz, a well-known entrepreneur, coined a term now famous across Startups and SMBs alike "Survival Trap".

Survival Trap is a never-ending loop where you keep on dousing fires every day in a repeat mode - with a goal of surviving each day and hoping for a saviour to come and save you.

Generally, that saviour is outside funding from a Venture Capital or an Angel Investor. And it should be no surprise why funding is celebrated so much across the startup world.?

After all, a startup is now loaded with money, and those pesky and stubborn fires will be just a bad memory very soon.??

But money solves only money problems.?

Money cannot fix "important foundation issues" that never came dressed as urgent and were shoved under the carpet regularly without fail.

Money cannot fix the problems that were created as an after-effect of dousing fires on a repeat mode.?

Money cannot fix the culture.

A venture-funded startup's default motto is "Growth at all costs".

Fancy Office - Check?

10x the Head Count - Check

Double the Salary, Triple the Salary - Check?

Double the Losses - Check

and the list goes on.?

Except for one line item.?

A painful word dreaded by most investors (barring a few notable exceptions, whom I have been extremely fortunate to work with).?

Profitability.?

Because Profitability is Freedom.?

And, why blame the investors. You haven't raised a massive round to put it in the bank and earn interest. One can argue that the money sitting passively in your bank might be better sitting in an investor's bank.?

You are expected to put that money in a well-oiled machine that puts in $1 and brings out $2. But, this is rarely the case - so investors have figured out they can reverse the machine that takes $2 and output $1 with a promise to the next investor that soon this machine will magically output $20 in the near future.?

Hence the model - "Growth at All Costs."

Now let's take the model of a Bootstrapped Startup - "Health at All Cost".?

You might ask - Why?

Because there is no other way.?

There is no other option for a bootstrapped startup.?

You are NOT healthy. Sorry, you will get no saviour, no medicine, no doctor.

You want a safety net. You should have better built it months ago.?

You want strong leadership. You should have developed it months ago with the inexperienced but highly ambitious and mission-driven people you have hired.

Your access to the supermarket is cut off.?

You can only enjoy the fruits from the trees you planted months or quarters ago.?

But there is good news.?

The "Growth at all Costs" model of a funded startup might not translate to Healthy Startup for all, read strong unit economics, health margin, and predictable cash flow.??

But a bootstrapped startup's "Health at all Costs" model will definitely result in strong and predictable growth. Infact it's the very outcome of being healthy.?

The only catch is you can never drop your primary goal of robust business health.?