> Instead you'll be compelled to seek growth in other ways. For example, by doing things that don't scale, or by redesigning the product in the way only founders can. And for many if not most startups, these paths to growth will be the ones that actually work.

Or you could reconsider the size of your total addressable market (hint: it's probably a lot smaller than what's in your pitch deck) and give weight to building a smaller company that's sustainably profitable.

Note that I'm not suggesting growth isn't important. What I am suggesting is that a lot of founders seek "Silicon Valley growth" without considering the possibility that they have an opportunity to build a lasting business that doesn't need hundreds of employees, tens of millions of dollars in funding, hundreds of millions in revenue and billions in enterprise value to succeed.