Should I Be Growing at All? Part 1
Michael Davis
Michael Chen
Tapan Patel
Kevin Kim
Aug 18, 2025
Before you sign a lease, spend the money, or start dreaming up the next grand opening, take a moment to reflect on the gravity of this decision.
It’s one of the biggest questions any brick-and-mortar founder will wrestle with: Should I even be growing at all?
This is not a checklist article. This is the gut check.
Growth is exciting. It can bring more revenue, a bigger brand footprint, new customers, and new opportunities for your team. But it also brings more stress, more complexity, and more risk.
So before you get swept up in the momentum, ask yourself what’s really driving this decision and whether you’re ready for what comes next.
What's Motivating You?
Start here. Why do you want to grow?
It’s okay if the answer is “to make more money.” But this is the most important question to get clear on before you expand. Growth is difficult, stressful, and financially demanding. Without a strong reason driving you forward, those pressures can outweigh the rewards. Be honest with yourself about whether that goal outweighs the reality of what it’s going to take. You’re not just duplicating a business. You’re multiplying the pressure, even if you have an excellent, scalable team in place (and that’s a big “if”).
Some entrepreneurs want to build an empire. Others want a lifestyle business that pays the bills and leaves time for their family. Both are valid. But they’re usually not the same path.
If your motivation is unclear or driven by external pressure, it’s easy to make the wrong decision. Especially when that decision could require a six- or seven-figure commitment once you factor in build-out costs, team ramp-up, and the time and opportunity costs that come with opening a new location.
There is always a price to pay for the empire you want to build. If you’re ready to sign up for that, we’ll help you see the full picture upfront, including the pain points you’re committing to along the way.
Are You Ready, Emotionally and Operationally?
Growth always brings complexity. With two locations, your time gets split. With ten, you are running a company, not a storefront. Geography matters, too. In the early days of building your business, having locations close enough to each other makes it easier to maintain high-quality service and address issues quickly. As you grow, you can hire district managers to help you oversee multiple sites, but proximity initially can make or break the rollout of new stores.
All of that adds pressure, and it’s worth asking yourself what that reality will mean for your day-to-day life and whether you’re ready for it. Are you going to be working nights and weekends again? Are you going to miss bedtimes because you’re waiting for a permit sign-off?
Emotionally, are you in a place to take on more? Do you have the depth on your team to support expansion? Is your existing general manager ready to manage the next location, or even willing? Are your vendors ready to support you where you’re going, and is your supply chain built to scale?
And what does your team want? If they’re not bought in, expansion can backfire. The best operators we know treat their team as partners in growth.
There are plenty of other moving parts to think about—like whether you’ll need more equipment, managing current investors/capital providers, attracting/retaining employees, and more, but we’ll dig into these operational realities more in future posts.
What's the Right Model for You?
Not every new location needs to look like the first.
We’ve seen operators scale down with smaller, more profitable footprints. For example, one co-working brand that we invested in started with a massive flagship space, and eventually realized that smaller, more efficient buildouts delivered stronger returns. In another instance, a brick-and-mortar founder we backed embraced a hub-and-spoke model, centralizing production to support smaller retail locations.
There are also different ownership models to consider. The most common approaches we see include:
Corporate-Owned: You maintain full control and take on all the operational responsibility. This works best when you have a strong leadership bench and want to own the upside.
Managing Partner: You bring on an equity partner to run the new location. This gives someone real skin in the game while allowing you to expand without carrying the full operational burden.
Build & Sell (or Franchise): You create a repeatable model with the intent to eventually sell or franchise new locations. This can scale quickly, but it comes with legal, quality, consistency, and brand control considerations.
That said, there is no one-size-fits-all model. There is only what works for you, your brand, your team, and your customers. The key is to grow from a position of strength, not desperation.
The Bottom Line
You've spent a few minutes reading this article, but this question deserves hours of consideration before you move forward. Because it's not just about analyzing your potential revenue or how much square footage you’ll need. It's about what your life will look like with more to manage.
There is a big difference between wanting a second location and being ready to run two. Between dreaming about scale and being equipped to deliver it. Between building something that makes you proud and building something that burns you out.
If growth is the right path for you, we’ll be the first to cheer you on.
But if you decide to stay where you are for now, that is not failure. That is being realistic. That is discipline. That is patience. And above all, that is thoughtfulness.
If you’ve done the emotional gut check and still feel ready, it might be time to ask the next question: