Think Bigger

Why So Many Ambitious Founders Stay Small

I'm watching brilliant founders sabotage their own growth, and it's breaking my heart. Not because they're not ambitious enough—most of the business owners I work with are deeply ambitious.

They lie awake at night thinking about impact, reach, legacy… and yes, their bills. They want to build something that matters.

The problem? They're ambitious in ways that guarantee they’ll stay small.

They copy pitch decks built for tech startups when they run yoga classes. They build systems for a business 100× their size while their actual business bleeds cash. They’re so terrified of “thinking too small” that they forget what makes their business worth scaling in the first place.

What if the secret to thinking bigger isn’t dreaming larger—but scaling what already works, instead of abandoning it for something more “scalable”?

Start With the Truth: Where Are You Actually Right Now?

Before talking about where you're going, we need to talk honestly about where you are.

Not where you hoped you'd be. Not where your peers seem to be.
Where you actually, truthfully, are.

The problem with most “scaling advice” is that it assumes you’re starting from the same place as everyone else. You’re not.

• You might be generating good revenue but working 70 hours a week. You don’t need to think bigger—you need to think more sustainably (for you).

• You might have nailed your core offering but keep getting distracted by shiny ideas. You don’t need more opportunities—you need sharper focus.

• You might fear that bigger means more complicated. You don’t need new systems—you need permission to want more.

• Or you might not be ready to scale yet—and that’s not failure. That’s wisdom.

Three grounding questions:

• Are you profitable on the work you're doing right now?

• Could you take a two-week holiday without the business collapsing?

• Does imagining your business at 3× the size excite you—or exhaust you?

Scaling poorly doesn’t make you successful. It makes you burned out at a larger scale.Where Are You Actually Starting From?

First Steps: Simple Doesn’t Mean Small

Here’s where I lose some founders—because what I say next feels counterintuitive:

The biggest scaling mistake isn’t thinking too big. It’s starting too complicated.

Every sustainably scaled business I know began with something elegantly simple. One thing done so exceptionally well that people couldn’t stop talking about it.

Remember the pre-pandemic Minimum Viable Product?

Grind didn’t try to dominate every part of coffee retail. They obsessed over delivering exceptional coffee experiences in a handful of London locations. They built loyalty before they built locations. They became famous for one thing before they became available everywhere.

That isn’t small thinking. That’s clear thinking.

Ask yourself:

• What’s the one thing you do that customers rave about?

• How could you deliver that to ten times more people—without diluting it?

• What are you scaling that should actually be simplified or protected?

Try this exercise:

List all your services, products, and offerings.
Circle only those that:

1. Your customers genuinely value

2. You deliver exceptionally well

3. Generate profit, not just revenue

Everything else = distraction disguised as diversification.

Designing Systems That Scale

Every decision you make now is either building reusable capability or future problems.

When you’re handling a handful of customer complaints manually, create a process that could handle ten times the volume.

When you’re hiring your third employee, set up what your thirtieth will need.

Ask:
“Is building this now helping me learn what I’ll need at scale?”

Often the answer is yes. Sometimes it’s a hard no.

What to Scale, What to Steal, What to Protect

Advice to “study successful companies” is both right and wrong.

What goes wrong? Founders copy tactics instead of understanding principles.

The goal isn’t to do what successful companies did.
It’s to understand how they thought.

Take Grind again: expanding from coffee to retail, subscriptions and corporate services wasn’t the tactic—it was the expression of their principle: building a lifestyle brand across multiple touchpoints.

Apply the principle, not the tactic.

And here’s the paradox:

Unscalable activities often teach you what your scalable systems must do.

Airbnb founders visiting hosts, staging properties, taking photos—totally unscalable.
But those acts revealed what the platform needed to solve.

Your framework:

1. Use unscalable methods to understand customers deeply.

2. Build scalable systems based on what you learned.

3. Identify what should scale and what should remain boutique.

The test:

If removing something makes you interchangeable with competitors,
don’t scale it—protect it.

The 3 Phases of Sustainable Scaling

Phase 1: Foundation

You’re not scaling yet—you’re validating.

Milestones:

• 10 customers who got real value

• You can deliver profitably

• You can deliver reliably

Phase 2: Systems

Shift from “Can I do this?” to “Can I do this repeatedly?”

Milestones:

• You can take a two-week holiday without the business collapsing

• Processes are documented

• You know your numbers weekly

Phase 3: Expansion

Test growth hypotheses systematically.

Milestones:

• You’ve replicated your model elsewhere successfully

• Growth isn’t a fluke—it’s repeatable

Be honest about which phase you’re truly in.

Staying Focused While Everything Pulls You Apart

The bigger you get, the more opportunities come your way—and most will destroy focus.

Your core business must be excellent before you diversify.

Every scaling decision must:

1. Strengthen your core, or

2. Create strategic future options

If it does neither, it’s noise.

Action for this week:

List every opportunity you’re considering.
Delete all but your top two.
If they matter, they’ll survive the wait.

The Real Question

Scaling isn’t about dreaming bigger. It’s about thinking clearer.

The founders who scale successfully:

• Dream about thousands while obsessing over the first hundred

• Build systems ready for 10× while ensuring 1× is profitable

• Learn from others but root themselves in their own context

• Use unscalable work to teach scalable strategy

• Say no to the wrong opportunities so they can say yes to the right ones

You don’t need to scale like anyone else.
You just need to scale in a way that feels true to you.

Ready to Scale Without Losing Yourself?

I work with ambitious founders who want to grow sustainably, profitably and with clarity.

Book a call and let’s talk about scaling the business of you.