For the past few years, nearly all growth-stage companies have been working to get profitable, with no exception to mine. Shifting the team’s mentality from grow-at-all-costs to “we all lose our jobs if we don’t get profitable” was a hard shift, but an easy decision (if you can call it one). After a few down-sizings, the meteor heading in our direction was in plain sight and we had to act quickly and there was no tip-toeing around strategy.

Fast forward to today, we’ve clawed our way to breakeven (and a tad beyond) and although it feels like we’ve accomplished the impossible, nobody is quite satisfied. The obvious reason is that this financial milestone for the company translates to the individuals only inasmuch as we have employment; I can guarantee that the bar was a bit higher than that when first joining a growth stage company.

So, the board’s official statement is now, “Great job. Now grow, but do it while profitable.”, which, to be fair, is sound advice. It tickles the mind to think that this statement essentially wipes out the value proposition for venture capital as whole, but that’s not for this reflection. The reality is that's exactly what we have to do in order for us, as individuals, to scratch our itch of ambition.

It’s back to “growth” mode for us, but with an asterisk. As a company, we’ve done growth mode, we’ve done profitability mode, but we haven’t done growth-while-profitable mode. The clutch is currently down and ready for the gear to shift back towards growth, but there’s a psychological scar that’s keeping us from putting the pedal to the metal. It’ll be slightly new waters to navigate, but as with anything, adding some intentional (and largely financial) frameworks to operate within should allow us to shake that scare and get moving.