I wonder how many companies, that don’t have investors, are on the “Fastest Growing Companies” lists. Pick your favorite list, pick your favorite number. Forbes 100, Deloitte 500, Inc 5000 etc. I rarely read the entirety of those articles, but I’m guessing many, if not all, of the companies on them have outside investors. As an owner of a fun, growing business without investors, I’d bet that a big reason these companies are in a race to the top is because of their investors. It makes you wonder if there were not so many companies racing to grow and to give their investors a return, would there be more companies that we actually enjoyed doing business with? Probably.
I believe there is a sweet spot that all companies will eventually find. Some find it fast and for others, it takes awhile. That sweet spot is a very balanced feeling spot where customers love your company and employees love your company and the company makes money and you love what you do. Continuing to grow (which we must) and staying in this sweet spot is a real challenge. We, at Schedulefly, work really hard on this – and it’s the reason why we say no often and make the decisions we do. Can we stay in the sweet spot forever? Who knows, but I know that taking investment and trying to grow and hire as fast as we can will have us one day wishing we had never done it.
Wes