When Growth is a Bad Thing • Hacker News Board

Re: When Growth is a Bad Thing

#11

Post by nicholas483 » Thu, Apr 25, 2013, 3:25 PM UTC

btipling wrote: post #4

I like Help Scout, but I hope they are getting more than ten deals! I also am not a fan of bending over for customers with features as that leads to bad code, badly implemented features, and isn't scalable. If customers aren't liking your roadmap, or vision, sure, think of something else, but don't get into the trap of building new features to get or keep individual customers. I don't think growth is a bad thing in t…

Yes we are getting more than 10 deals. That was a couple years ago. :-)

We've been very judicious about product decisions regarding customers, that's not really the kind of bending I'm referring to. It's more about the effort involved to get them to your site, onboarded, excited and pulling out their wallet.

Re: When Growth is a Bad Thing

#12

Post by bbrunner » Thu, Apr 25, 2013, 5:14 PM UTC

Too much growth too early on can be bring up so many issues that aren't core to your business. It forces you to scale out systems that you might not actually need. It introduces tons of support issues. It forces you to recruit quickly to take up slack. These all can be managed, but often it's easier to build a stellar product when you're serving a small cadre of very high-caliber, quality users.

Re: When Growth is a Bad Thing

#13

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 25, 2013, 5:24 PM UTC

john61 wrote: post #7

In medicine excess growth is called cancer

[deleted]

Re: When Growth is a Bad Thing

#14

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 25, 2013, 6:03 PM UTC

mattmaroon wrote: post #9

This is a pretty poorly crafted argument. 1. Phish is popular. 2. I think Phish wouldn't have succeeded if they grew fast but I have no evidence to support that. 3. Your startup is just like Phish.

[deleted]

Re: When Growth is a Bad Thing

#15

Post by ericb » Thu, Apr 25, 2013, 6:09 PM UTC

mattmaroon wrote: post #9

This is a pretty poorly crafted argument. 1. Phish is popular. 2. I think Phish wouldn't have succeeded if they grew fast but I have no evidence to support that. 3. Your startup is just like Phish.

Article is best enjoyed as a zen koan:

Phish would not have grown large if they had grown large quickly.

Re: When Growth is a Bad Thing

#16

Post by johnrob » Thu, Apr 25, 2013, 6:11 PM UTC

mattmaroon wrote: post #9

This is a pretty poorly crafted argument. 1. Phish is popular. 2. I think Phish wouldn't have succeeded if they grew fast but I have no evidence to support that. 3. Your startup is just like Phish.

Startup advice = limited world experience + over generalization. All arguments regarding startups have holes in them.

Re: When Growth is a Bad Thing

#17

Post by guylhem » Thu, Apr 25, 2013, 6:15 PM UTC

mattmaroon wrote: post #9

This is a pretty poorly crafted argument. 1. Phish is popular. 2. I think Phish wouldn't have succeeded if they grew fast but I have no evidence to support that. 3. Your startup is just like Phish.

Agreed. The idea is not articulated.

But let's leave aside the way it's crafted, and look at the core proposal : the article seems to suggest that growing too fast reduce how well the company is perceived, or how efficient it may be.

But as you said, no evidence is provided. It could just be a survivor bias.

Also, considering how people keep talking about "the next big thing" and companies with double digits growth rate, there could even be counter evidence to this claim.

Is it necessary for posters to submit messages containing wild speculations not backed with evidence, or even with some counter evidence ?

I wish it was possible to downvote some articles to reclaim the (collectively) lost time - 10 seconds by thousands of people - or to avoid starting a reasoning on false premises.

I for one enjoy it when I'm told how and why some idea is wrong, and where deadends are. Too bad this can't be done yet on HN.

Re: When Growth is a Bad Thing

#18

Post by cardine » Thu, Apr 25, 2013, 6:31 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #8

jordan_clark wrote: post #5

I think the title of the blog post should have been "Taking VC money too early is a bad thing". Because truly, at that point your focus has to switch from 'product' to 'profitability'. Overall though, I agree with the sentiments.

VCs don't necessarily care about profitability either. They're looking for a liquidity event - either M&A or IPO. Profitability is only useful insofar as it helps achieve the desired liquidity event at maximum valuation. More to the point, large investors cause a short-term growth focus, because they're looking for 5-20x returns over the course of a few years. But as others have said, do you want to be rich, or do yo…

Very well put. I bootstrapped and provided all of the funding for my company. It was worth the slightly slower growth because it can follow my long term vision and not the short term vision of a VC who is looking for a quick return on their investment.

Re: When Growth is a Bad Thing

#19

Post by ArekDymalski » Fri, Apr 26, 2013, 12:48 PM UTC

jordan_clark wrote: post #5

I think the title of the blog post should have been "Taking VC money too early is a bad thing". Because truly, at that point your focus has to switch from 'product' to 'profitability'. Overall though, I agree with the sentiments.

The title is fine even if a little bit click-baity. However this digression about VC money blurred the core message imho. That's why Nick inspired me to write http://hr4startups.quora.com/When-growth-is-a-really-bad-thi... where I attempt to emphasize the most important stuff.