There are 2 states in the forest: growing trees and rotting trees. Nothing in between. So this cancer analogy is a bit absurd. The same with business: business is growing or dying, I am not buying “we don’t want grow” argument.
> The same with business: business is growing or dying
I know plenty of people with small businesses that are neither growing nor dying, just paying the bills and making enough money to live happily. I'm kind of scared that people can't even imagine this is a possibility to be honest...
Not everything has to be the next facebook and have 100% yoy growth
Maybe those companies don't have net growth, but they still need some sort of growth. Regardless of what industry you're in, every business will face inevitable losses—customers will decide to leave, inflation will occur, equipment will need to be repaired/replaced, etc. Those losses need to be offset by growth.
While net positive growth isn't necessary, it is a major motivator for launching your own business. If you don't have net growth, then you're exchanging both your efforts in working at the business as well as in the day-to-day running of the business in exchange for a relatively fixed income. I'm not sure that the risk involved combined with the income to hours-worked ratio is much more beneficial than just working as an employee with much lower risk and no responsibility to run/manage the business.
I wouldn't consider "replacing" a lost client or a broken tool as growing. A company with good finances should already have planned for that. Either way I highly doubt that's the "cancer" the article is talking about.
Right, the article is talking about a different sort of growth, but I'm responding to your assertion that there are companies that are neither growing nor dying. I agree that some companies may be sustainable while having net zero growth, as you stated. I disagree that these companies do absolutely nothing to attempt to grow their businesses and don't even think about growth. At minimum, these net zero growth companies must at least grow enough to offset their losses at a sustainable pace. That means these companies do have to participate in traditional growth activities.
Specifically, I'm responding to:
> I'm kind of scared that people can't even imagine this is a possibility to be honest...
From the outside looking in, a net zero growth company appears to be living happily as you stated, but I don't think this reflects reality on closer inspection. All net zero growth businesses exist in a dynamic equilibrium in which they're constantly facing losses and constantly finding ways to grow to (at minimum) offset those losses. And these are just considerations for your own business. What about the competition? If your competitor is willing to build a net positive growth company, what are your odds of survival in the long-term?
"Growth" is used as a term for a particular property of every biological system https://basicbiology.net/biology-101/mrs-gren. Perhaps it would help if people in this discussion defined their terms.
It’s weird when 30 years old company has only 10 employees while working in wide industrial automation field. The owner is just too lazy to go out of town and look for some new customers.
What if the owner is perfectly happy with his position. Why would you increase your work load and working hours to "grow" if you're living a good life already ? fomo ? lack of other meaning in your life ?
If your business supports your lifestyle what's lazy about just ... enjoying it ? Isn't that the very purpose of "work" ?
Or maybe happy with earning enough for himself and 10 others. If that worked for 30 years, that owner achieved more than most. And might do so for the foreseeable future.
What an ignorant comment! Life is not only business struggle. Growing a company as a founder means you need to sacrifice some part of your personal life for the company, either stress, free time or money. There are people happy with their lives that don't want more stress or to lose more free time... and for what? a bit bigger bank account? i'm sure the founder is doing just fine financially already
Founder was doing fine. We worked on Dell laptops from thrift store with Ubuntu. And we were paid from government’s welfare program few months too. So I suggest to look very well at employers numbers from the past 5-10 years.
Kinda interessting how majority seem to be from japan or german countries. And they all have very specific business. I wonder how big they are, and whether their size is somewhat constant through their history. Also, how many of them are really the same company, and not actually a batch of different companies just operating under the same name..
Like if a company operated for some time before it goes bust and some years later a different company continues the operation under the same name, but with different people, concepts, etc. would it still be regarded the same companies on that list? In certain cases continuing the tradition and a good name is worth big money and asien companies seem to have traditions around this concept.
A symphony orchestra does not grow or rot. It stays mostly the same. Of course the value of the institution and the quality of the output may fluctuate over time.
I don't think it's growth that is the key for healthy organization - it is the drive to deliver quality output. When that drive withers the rot start. I don't see the quality of output and the drive for quality necessary linked to a constant growth in terms of revenue and so on.
This is a very incorrect take on forests. They’re incredibly intricate ecosystems in balance. They are anything but black and white, grow or die situations. Cancer in a forest would be the invasive tree that wipes out all of the native species which can’t compete. Or a blight that destroys the dominant trees.
Your analogy does not work. The growth of a forest is different from the growth of a company, which seeks to maximize revenue and profit, often via more customers or exploring existing customers.
A forest on the other hand maintains a steady state. Okay, trees continue to grow, but forests have natural ways of ensuring that trees and the other flora do not over occupy. A forest maintains balance, whereas many companies want to eat the world.
Let's take a natural monopoly. Like electric grid. Can these companies really grow forever? At some point they should have build transmission lines to everyone that they can profitably afford to. Then they can either expand to some other field or keep paying 5-20% to their owners as dividends each year...
I don't see later option as bad one. Clearly they can provide service and invest to keep it running or even to optimize it. But growth might be impossible.
A lot of successful businesses adapt constantly but they don't grow in size. If you define "growth" as constantly changing to adapt to circumstances then you are right. But if you define "growth" as becoming bigger in size, I don't agree.
