The Two Big Questions

A startup journey can naturally be split into two phases, each driven by a different question. First comes the survival question - can we find product-market fit before we run out of runway? Later, for some founders, comes the scale question - can we turn this working business into something massive?

The survival phase is about existential pressure. It's about finding those first passionate users, generating initial revenue, and validating core assumptions. Founders in this phase must stay lean, move fast, and stay incredibly close to their customers. They often pivot multiple times before finding their fit.

Once product-market fit emerges, founders face a critical choice. They can continue optimizing for survival - building a profitable, sustainable business with steady growth. Or they can shift to the scale question - pursuing explosive growth that could create a category-defining company.

Good strategies for survival include rapid experimentation, maintaining low burn rates, and charging early. These founders iterate quickly based on customer feedback and guard their runway jealously.

Good strategies for scale, once product-market fit is found, look very different. They involve raising substantial capital, prioritizing growth over profitability, and building infrastructure ahead of demand. These founders focus on total addressable market and network effects.

Interestingly, much of the startup ecosystem pushes founders to focus on scale before surviving. Accelerators, VCs, and startup media glamorize the "unicorn or bust" path while dismissing more modest ambitions. This creates pressure to play the scale game before mastering survival.

Some of the most successful startups actually followed a sequential approach - first building sustainable businesses focused on survival, then transitioning to scale once their core model was proven. This "survival-first" approach deserves more attention.

The startup world might benefit from more explicit recognition of this natural progression. Different advice, funding models, and support systems make sense depending on whether a founder is still answering the survival question or has moved on to the scale question.

Understanding where you are in this journey - and whether you want to transition from survival to scale at all - might be one of the most important decisions a founder makes.