&gt; Instead you&#x27;ll be compelled to seek growth in other ways. For example, by doing things that don&#x27;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.<p>Or you could reconsider the size of your total addressable market (hint: it&#x27;s probably a lot smaller than what&#x27;s in your pitch deck) and give weight to building a smaller company that&#x27;s sustainably profitable.<p>Note that I&#x27;m not suggesting growth isn&#x27;t important. What I am suggesting is that a lot of founders seek &quot;Silicon Valley growth&quot; without considering the possibility that they have an opportunity to build a lasting business that doesn&#x27;t need hundreds of employees, tens of millions of dollars in funding, hundreds of millions in revenue and billions in enterprise value to succeed.