Startup Culture Prioritizes Scaling Fast — Here's Why That's Actually a Huge Mistake They say bigger is better — but smallness is sustainable. Here's why going small may work for you.
By Aytekin Tank Edited by Kara McIntyre
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Startup culture has a fixation on size. Entrepreneurs talk endlessly about scaling; hiring fast and firing faster; sky-high valuations and massive amounts of venture capital. Smallness is associated with failure — or at least low ambition. After all, why would anyone shoot for small when they could go huge?
The truth is, there are so many perks to starting small. This is not to say that your ambitions should be modest or that you shouldn't plan to scale. But launching a startup doesn't have to mean quitting your day job, grabbing millions in VC and hiring hundreds of employees overnight. In fact, I wouldn't advise doing it that way at all. Here's how smallness can actually work to your advantage.
Related: Has Your Business Lost Its Way? Use These 3 Smart Tips to Scale Strategically.
Starting with a side hustle
Everyone loves picturing the moment when they quit their day job, striding cinematically out of their cubicle for the last time and crossing the symbolic threshold from worker drone to startup founder. But the reality is that a lot of businesses these days start as a side hustle — data shows that 44% of new business owners in the U.S. launched their ventures while working full or part-time, up from 27% in 2022.
There's a reason for the popularity of this method: It works. I know this firsthand, having launched my company, Jotform, as a project I did alongside working full-time for a media company. It's true that this approach means you can't give your business your full, undivided attention, at least not at first. But holding on to your day job has one massive benefit: You don't need to worry about the pesky matter of how you'll pay your bills or fret over your burn rate. You've got a salary, and that affords you an infinite runway to get your dream off the ground. It also gives you the chance to get to know yourself as a founder and stress-test your product or idea before you go all in.
Smallness equals agility and resilience
If you've ever picked characters for a video game, you know that bigger isn't always better — sure, more mass often means greater strength, but that's hardly a guaranteed win. Smaller means greater agility, heightened responsiveness and the ability to outmaneuver opponents with speed and precision. In many scenarios, being smaller allows for quicker reflexes, the ability to exploit tight spaces and the element of surprise — qualities that can turn the tide in your favor when brute force alone won't cut it.
The same is true for a business. The smaller you are, the easier it is to pivot or react quickly to shifting market demands. It's also easier to be innovative, meaning you can test a new product or service with relatively low risk.
You don't need a ton of employees — or, for that matter, a massive office space or millions in capital — to have a successful startup. It took me a long time to hire my first employee, and I only did it after my business had grown enough that not hiring was holding me back. Expanding too quickly not only pulls your attention away from your actual business, it adds layers of bulk that can quickly turn to dead weight when you have to change direction.
Related: 5 Reasons Why Your First Company Will Probably Fail — Unless You Make These Changes
There's less pressure
An approach I've seen become popular these days is making a product that generates some passive income — often just a few thousand dollars — and then moving on to make other products. The idea is to have multiple balls in the air at once, with the hope that one of them will be the one that can scale.
I like this concept for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that your first idea may not be your best one. Working on multiple products allows you to gain valuable experience without putting all of your eggs in one basket. Having the experience of developing and launching a product before you hit gold will certainly make the road ahead smoother.
You also may find that once you get going, the product you were so sure about initially just isn't working for you anymore. While there will always be days when you're felled by doubt or unenthusiastic about the path you've decided to take, it's also true that sometimes your enthusiasm for a particular project just dissipates.
This was the case for one poster on Indie Hacker, who shared that they realized they were worn down by what they were working on. Shortly after, a message from a friend triggered a bolt of inspiration for a new idea, one that felt fresh but could still utilize their previous work. "This is the kind of idea I'd have passed up as being too small/silly/not cool enough — but I felt really energized knowing it was something I could achieve," they wrote. Sometimes, it's not about the flashiest idea or the one that looks best on paper, but the one that actually excites you.
Everyone knows the term "bigger is better," but that's far from always the case. Smallness significantly lowers your risk of failure, makes it easier to pivot and allows you to take on multiple projects at once. In other words, bigger may theoretically be better, but smallness is sustainable.
