How will you grow? 📈

John Meese -

As you're building your business, you get to choose what type of growth to pursue: Spikes or Stairs?

Spikes are exciting! These are the gigantic launches that catapult a business upwards (or don't) and that's where most front page headlines come from in business.

Stairs are a bit more boring, with consistent, step-by-step growth that doesn't feel huge in the moment—but still leads to long-term success.

While growth spikes are exciting, they are followed by a stressful crash and build-up cycle. Growth by stairs is less dramatic, but more consistent and sustainable long-term.

Speaking from personal experience, spikes are super stressful.

Whether the "spikes" goal is $10K or $1MM, the push to climb is exhausting and the thrill of success is quickly replaced by the stress of the in-between.

Before you think climbing the stairs means you must settle take a look at this chart following ConvertKit's growth to $28MM/Year:

You won't find any spikes on that graph, because ConvertKit (like many other bootstrapped businesses) climbed the stairs.

Pick Your Staircase

If you are ready to pursue growth by stairs, you're in the right place.

Over the last five articles, you learned about five different Growth Models that each represent a unique path to growth. Which will you choose?

There is no shortage of opportunity, only a shortage of focused execution.

Keep your energy focused on one primary growth model and you'll start climbing your stairs.

Which Growth Model will be your primary focus?

  • Viral Growth (get target customers to share your business word-of-mouth, person-to-person)
  • Paid Growth (pay for advertisements or sponsorships to get in front of target customers)
  • Sticky Growth (create irreplaceable infrastructure for your target customers)
  • SEO Growth (become the answer key for your industry in search results)
  • Affiliate Growth (pay commission on sales from superfans and industry influencers)