Growth gets a lot of attention in the startup world. A lot of attention. If you Google “startup growth“, you’ll find a plethora of articles, blog posts and tools all suggesting that growth is the most important measure of your startup.
Paul Graham, the founder of Y Combinator, asserts that “The only essential thing is growth“.
In some sense, this attention is well-deserved. But it is often misunderstood and taken out of context.
Growth is, of course, important. Growth is a telling measure of your product/service’s popularity; and, as such, strong growth metrics are invaluable when you’re trying to raise money from investors.