Why Doesn’t It Grow? by Szymon Janiak

The post was originally published in Polish on Szymon’s LinkedIn profile. Szymon kindly agreed to republish what we think is of great value to our readers.

Your business is not growing. After several dozen investments, it is puzzling to me how often the same circumstances arise.

From the founder’s side, it looks like this: I have a great product. I do my best. I invest in marketing. And yet, my company is standing still.

Sounds familiar?

The truth is that growth doesn’t happen by accident. Companies do not fail because of one big mistake, but because of hundreds of small decisions that gradually clip their wings.

If you’re wondering why your business isn’t moving forward, here are 5 possible reasons:

1. You hire people, not leaders. A team that only “gets things done” will never push the company to the next level. You need people who think, propose, take the initiative. If everyone is waiting for your decisions–you don’t have a team, but a group of doers.
2. You don’t care about your customers–and they see it. A customer who feels neglected will not become your ambassador. Maybe they won’t even come back. If your entire strategy is to “attract customers and sell,” then your competitors will quickly take them over. Long-term success is built on relationships, not one-off deals.
3. You scale the business blindly. “More customers, more people, more offices!” – sounds great. But if you’re growing faster than you can control, that’s a recipe for disaster. A lot of companies fail not because of a lack of customers, but because they scale too quickly without a strategy.
4. Your ads are money thrown down the drain. “Invest in marketing” – great advice. But if your strategy is “we put a budget in Facebook Ads and it will work out somehow,” then you’d better throw this money out the window right away. Marketing works, but only if you know who you’re talking to and what you’re going to convince them with.
5. You want to do everything at once–and you don’t do anything right. You have limited time, resources, and people. And yet you grab a million things to do. The result is lack of focus, chaos, and mediocre results. Instead of splintering on everything, do one thing better than anyone else.

The company does not grow “on its own”. This is the result of your decisions – good or bad.

The comment section had to add:

As I observe, Point 5 is the most common mistake. Everything at once, and maybe something will work out. It won’t—it’s worth focusing on what you can excel at, the spread and pray tactic has not worked for quite a while. By the way, I recommend the book “Only the Paranoid Survive” about Intel’s adventures during their pivot period from RAM to CPUs. We often succumb to the illusion that we are growing, but this growth is only inflation minus, and we fail to see that the company is at the so-called strategic infection point where simple changes no longer do the trick.

– Przemek Glosny, CEO of useme.com

I disagree with the first point. People can and must be employed, but they cannot be left to themselves and expected to think the same way as the entrepreneur who hires them. This is inherently impossible. And leaders need to be educated. The right attitude and common values are decisive.

– Ewa Bartnik, VP & CFO at Imker_pl