248 - The Pringles Effect: "Once You Pop, You Can’t Stop" - Growth
A door that can't be returned through
Startups are businesses that are designed to grow very fast. At a certain point that must mean very fast growth in revenue, otherwise the business will not be viable. In Q4 of 2023, our unifying theme at Mayday was “show we can grow”. We grew our monthly recurring revenues 2.7x in the quarter, an 8.5% compound weekly growth rate. I’m writing about my key learnings from that experience.
The previous post highlighted the paradox that it can sometimes (not all the time and in all regards) be more advantageous for a startup to have no revenue vs some revenue. In an earlier post, I talked about how a startup needed the context for growth. It needs the foundation of product-market fit to be able to grow upon.
That foundation is an ongoing requirement. In choosing to focus on revenue growth as a yardstick of progress, the startup opens a door through which they can never go back. The audacity of zero is no longer accessible, which for sure is not necessarily a bad thing.
But it’s all by way of saying that choosing to focus on growth creates what I like to call The Pringles Effect, in reference to the crisp brand’s 25-year brand slogan: “Once you pop, you can’t stop”.