“My audience didn’t grow much in 2017. The newsletter seems to be holding steady around 30,000 subscribers and signups for my courses seem stable as well. In most businesses, this would be considered problematic since it’s not growing—but in my case, I’m actually quite happy. I have enough of an audience where I can make a great living and still have the bandwidth to actually talk to the folks in it who get in touch, reply, ask questions, or send notes my way. So I’m pleased it’s not growing, because it’s enough for me, for right now.”
Paul Jarvis in his “State of the Union 2018”
A business should always be growing, right?
What Paul Jarvis says in this post flies in the face of almost everyone writing about business, startups, and entrepreneurship. Isn’t the whole idea to grow, grow, grow?
Have you heard the parable of the businessman and the fisherman? Here’s a version of it.
It is good to have growth goals. It keeps you motivated to do your best work.
From a financial perspective, however, do you know how much growth is enough?
With more growth comes more expenses and the need to hire people to help manage the expansion.
Jarvis is on to something here. Instead of infinite growth, maybe our goal should be to reach a point where we can say, “It’s not growing because it’s enough for me, right now.”
How about you?
P.S. I’m looking forward to Jarvis’s book, Company of One.
