Growing vs Scaling

Good companies grow. Great companies scale.

Do you understand the difference? It is simple:

Growing = Revenue is increasing but resources (people, technology) are added in a linear manner to support the growth.

Scaling = Revenue is increasing but with little increase in resources.

This is one of the reasons that investors love product-led companies. The potential for true scale is much higher than marketing or sales-led companies.

Same thing with people creating courses to teach someone how to do something instead of doing it for them.

In marketing, we most often see it contrasted in paid vs organic, but it applies in other channels too. A referral program or newsletter has a greater probability of scaling than sponsoring events or guest blogging.

When is the last time you evaluated your customer acquisition strategy through this lens?