We’ve been thinking about “hockey stick growth” all wrong

Hockey stick growth is a term often used to describe the explosive growth of a startup. If metrics like active users, downloads or revenue were plotted on a graph over time, the curve would resemble that of a hockey stick with a short flat bit at the bottom and then a sharp curve up with a long steep bit at the end. How can we achieve that kind of growth in our own businesses? What is the “one weird thing” that changes everything and causes this huge uplift in growth? Well, for many businesses and startups I think this image of the hockey stick is misleading. We’ve been thinking about hockey stick growth all wrong.

Exponential growth

Ideas are cheap but starting a business is hard. Not only do you need to create and iterate on your product or service but you need to recruit an amazing team, build a company culture, manage people, build an audience, track analytics and measure everything, keep on top of the finances, market your product, write for your blog, conquer social media and still find time to nurture relationships with family and friends.

But if you just keep going, one day soon you’ll see that magical curve explode with exponential goodness. It can’t be far away, look at the diagram — the flat part is short and the pay off will be so worth it when we hit that magical turning point.

This may be true for some huge businesses with masses of capital investment like Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Amazon and Groupon — which has arguably been the fastest growing company (in revenue) of all time, bringing in $30m in it’s first year despite making massive net losses. But is this realistic for a new venture started from the kitchen table or within a local business accelerator program? Probably not. But never say never.

A more realistic model

So, what is a more realistic picture for growth? Well, you could still call it a hockey stick but it’s not your typical one. This hockey stick is in a much more stable position and doesn’t paint a picture of some magical turning point early on.

This may not be a particularly optimistic view, but it definitely seems more realistic; put in the time, grow your audience, provide value, show up consistently and eventually, people will start to take notice. Building a sustainable business is a long game, not some quick dash to the finish line.

I can’t see my new venture with a traditional hockey stick curve but I can see it following this much more slow and steady path to success.

Our goal is to build an audience by providing them inspirational and educational content about the cross-section of food and tech; showcasing the entrepreneurs and innovators in the food space and the wonderful world of gadgets and apps for foodies — the TechCrunch for food, if you will. We’re seeing some positive signs at the moment but growing this audience through publishing content will take time. Over time we’ll no doubt resonate with a portion of our audience and we’ll be able to build a community of tech-savvy foodies. To that core group we should have the opportunity to create and sell products that they’ll find genuinely useful and engaging, allowing us to continue to produce content for everyone and better serve our community.

With this kind of approach, massive growth doesn’t come overnight. It’s very unlikely that I’ll wake up one morning and see website traffic figures that are ten times the previous day’s. It’s very unlikely a blog post about an app that helps solve food waste or an article about meat made out of plants will go viral and triple our email list. We’re playing the long-game. Hopefully, one day, all the hard work will pay off.

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