Why Great Businesses Grow in Stages—and Why Your Old Habits Create Your Next Bottleneck

A tech startup founder, initially a coding whiz, spent two years scraping together clients by doing everything himself—sales, invoicing, even janitorial work. The company’s revenue slowly inched past $1 million. Then the problems began to compound: missed deadlines, angry customers, disorganized team meetings. The founder realized too late that the strategies which got his business off the ground—personal hustle and hands-on control—were now the very things choking off growth.

Seeking guidance, he mapped his challenges onto a growth framework and confirmed his company had entered 'adolescence.' He noticed that chaos wasn’t a result of lazy staff or poor motivation, but the absence of clear processes and skilled managers. Once he stopped trying to solve every problem personally and invested in training and systems, the business broke through to its next level—and he reclaimed his weekends.

Business growth frameworks, like those in developmental psychology, reveal that the tactics that succeed at one maturity stage often become liabilities at the next. Recognizing this transition—rather than blaming oneself or one’s team—lets leaders move with change instead of fighting it, avoiding burnout and stagnation.

Step back and get brutally honest with yourself about where you really are in your journey: are you still an energetic doer, or is it time to step up as organizer, mentor, or process architect? Map your main headaches to your business's current maturity stage, then deliberately drop tactics that once helped but now just create gridlock. Let go of the old heroics; the next stage of growth demands new moves and, more importantly, new mindsets. Try it before you burn out this month.