🌱 Growth isn't always up and to the right

The Progress Report | February 25, 2025

Watch any race, and you'll see sprinters bolt off the starting line, burning through their energy reserves in the first few minutes. Their options quickly become binary: keep sprinting or get passed. 

In the world of entrepreneurship, we're often told that explosive growth is the only path to success. Launch fast. Scale faster. Raise money. Repeat.

Frankly, that perspective is flat-out wrong. Today's about a founder who learned this the hard way.

WEEKLY INSIGHT

In 2011, Sahil Lavingia was living the Silicon Valley dream. He'd just raised millions for his startup, Gumroad, which was growing exponentially. At 19-years-old, he was being hailed as the next Zuckerberg. 

By 2015, his company had raised $8M, grown to a team of 20, and was the talk of the startup world.

Then the sprint caught up with him. Growth slowed. Users stalled. Money stopped coming in. Before long, he had to lay off 75% of his team.

But this wasn’t a death spiral; it’s where the story gets interesting. 

Instead of trying to muster up the strength for another sprint, Lavignia chose a different path. He rebuilt Gumroad with sustainable growth in mind:

• Focusing on profitability over growth-at-all-costs 

• Keeping his team intentionally small

• Making decisions based on long-term impact rather than short-term optics

Today, Gumroad has helped creators earn over $700M. Meanwhile, Lavignia’s living the life he actually wants—honing his writing skills, working on his fantasy novel and launching new venture ideas.

That's what sustainable growth looks like.

INTENT TO ACTION

This week, create a sustainable growth dashboard. Instead of tracking vanity metrics that sprint your energy away, focus on numbers that matter for the long run.

We’ve made this easy. Grab our free Notion template, designed to track three key areas:

• Health metrics: is my business sustainable?

• Growth metrics: am I moving forward?

• Life metrics: am I building the life I want?

Pick just two numbers to track under each category. For example:

• Health: Monthly recurring revenue, Profit margin

• Growth: New customer retention, Email list growth

• Life: Hours worked per week, Days completely off

The key is to look at these numbers monthly, not daily. This prevents the anxiety of constant comparison while keeping you focused on steady progress.

Set targets that feel almost too easy. Consistent small wins compound faster than sporadic big wins—and you'll often find yourself exceeding these targets naturally once you're in motion.

CLOSING THOUGHT

The startup world loves to celebrate sprinters. But nobody can do it forever (and most don’t really want to, either). The real winners are the ones who find their pace and stick to it—even when it doesn’t feel exciting.

Next week, we'll talk about how successful founders navigate the really f*cking hard parts of the journey. Spoiler: it's not through motivational quotes.

See you then.

PS: Your Weekly Challenge

Share a screenshot of your sustainable growth dashboard after you set it up. 

Not the metrics themselves (those are just for you), but the categories and types of metrics you chose to track. We'd love to see what success looks like, on your terms.