“Shouldn’t you really ought to be growing?” This is the question I’m always asked when I explain that we embrace a post-growth philosophy at Copper8 and never want to grow beyond fifteen advisors. Of course, the idea that we, as an impact-driven company, should be allowed to grow is not a crazy one; Jason Hickel even describes it in his book Less is More: it’s not so much growth that is ‘bad’ but rather the ‘growth imperative.’ In his opinion, we should, indeed, be allowed to grow.
Yet we have maximized our growth, and so far it has been organic. We have grown consciously, without growth hormones or an external financial boost.
We do this somewhat scarred by the past. With an injection of external capital, you actually end up in a growth spiral. After all, as well as covering costs, turnover also needs to create sufficient returns for the shareholder or loan repayment. In order to feed that growth, a completely different culture and working method suddenly arises: the organization becomes a slave to the turnover target.
This results in the dilution of the organization’s identity: in this situation, does everyone still have the ‘purpose’ in mind? Or are you given a sales or turnover target that you have to achieve? In the past, we have noticed that it’s more about the fact that you sell than what you sell. All this leads to a situation in which management is done by spreadsheet rather than from the heart, where that purpose is so deeply anchored. This is not only the case with entrepreneurs, but with entire organizations. Maybe it’s not so much “culture” but “passion eats strategy for breakfast” (as Peter Drucker said).
Our philosophy of staying small is anything but commonplace. The FD Gazellen is an interesting target group to look at: not only did the number of fastest-growing companies in the Netherlands rise by almost 50% between 2022 and 2023, the 2023 gazelles also expect to see their turnover increase by 20% in the coming year. In the technology world, the addiction to growth seems to have gone off the rails: in 2023, Dutch tech companies raised more than €1.4 billion in investments, according to the Dutch Startup Association. This is a substantial amount, and it’s not invested completely risk-free – research shows that 40 to 60% of Dutch startups ultimately fail. (All links in Dutch.)
What is this obsession with growth? Why are you only established as an entrepreneur once you’re on growth hormones?