Should Startups Go Big or Go Home? Or Is There Another Way?

As a kid (though one older than I’d care to admit), I really liked the Disney Channel film Johnny Tsunami. I doubt it’s the origin of the phrase, but it was definitely the first time I ever heard anyone say “go big or go home,” and the phrase has stuck with me. The idea, of course, is that you shoot for the top or you don’t bother shooting at all.

Needless to say, this concept is very prevalent in the startup scene. Everybody wants to be the next Facebook or Instagram. It’s even become sort of a core concept: any good startup idea must be scalable, we say. Often enough what we mean by that is that it needs to have the potential to get huge, both technically and conceptually speaking.

And of course, there are a lot of reasons to go big. Aside from the giant pile of money that comes along with successfully taking a startup from nothing to a globally dominant force, you also get fame, connections, and all the ego-stroking goodness that comes along with being a big winner. The bigger your goals and your risks, the bigger the rewards tend to be when they come. That’s enticing.

But most startups fail; everyone knows that. Sometimes, startups that could succeed fail because the founders are trying to become world-beating billionaires instead of focusing on a smaller-scale, self-sustaining long-term projects. Unfortunately, working on something like that simply isn’t cool. If your goal isn’t to make a bazillion dollars, investors aren’t interested, the media isn’t interested, and even your fellow founders may wonder why you’re wasting your time with something that’s not “more scalable.”

Frankly, I think the whole scene needs an attitude adjustment. There’s no shame in starting a company with small-scale, focused goals and no ambitions of ruling the world. It may be harder to attract investment like that, of course, but that pressure should push you towards greater efficiency and quicker profitability. And there’s nothing wrong with making a steady profit each year but never getting the massive acquisition or IPO that other entrepreneurs are searching for. Creating a stable, long-term company is hard, and that ought to be considered just as worthwhile and noble a goal as “going big.”

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with going big, or suggesting that anyone should abandon their dreams. Shooting for the stars is all well and good; all I’m saying is that stars are hard to hit, and sometimes there are easy targets sitting right in front of you. You can go big if that’s your dream, but the alternative doesn’t have to be “go home.” Smaller successes are still successes, and smaller failures are still something you can learn from. Your company doesn’t have to help you take over the world. Isn’t making a living by doing what you want and being your own boss a goal that’s worth shooting for even if you’ll never have the international stardom or deep pockets of Mark Zuckerberg?

(That’s not a rhetorical question; let us know your thoughts in the comments!)