There are two types of business owners:
- Those who spend years investing every dollar they generate back into the business
- Those who take the revenue and spend it on “nice things”
Now, neither of those is “wrong,” and I’m not here to tell anyone what to do with their hard-earned money. I’m just here to explain why I chose to live frugally for more than five years after Crisp started generating profit…
My goal for my business was to keep it moving up as efficiently as it could. I didn’t care very much about how its success reflected on my house, my car, or my dinner habits. I just cared about doing everything I could to ensure it grew at the fastest rate possible.
The only way to maximize your firm’s potential and growth is to invest money into optimizing every part of it: teams, systems, operations, technology, etc.
If you’re not putting money back into your business, it isn’t going to magically scale on its own. At best, it may grow slowly. The growth that could’ve happened in five years will take 10 or 15. At worst, it will plateau. What could’ve reached eight figures will stall at two.
Here’s the thing: That might be alright with you, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Like I said, I’m not here to tell you how to spend your money. The main reason you became an entrepreneur is likely to avoid someone else telling you what to do and how to do it.
You earned the money, so you decide how to spend it. Is your priority to upgrade your house? Do it. Want to go on a lavish vacation more than anything? Book the hotels. I won’t stop or shame you for it.
I’m simply here to remind you that you can’t have both. You can’t spend all of your profit on yourself and expect your firm to explode in revenue and popularity on sheer inertia.
The founders who scale the fastest understand this. They delay gratification, reinvest aggressively, and pour resources back into the business long before they start pulling significant profits out.
That might mean investing in better marketing, hiring ahead of demand, building systems before they’re “necessary,” and taking bets on growth when it’s still uncomfortable.
Yes, it might also mean living below your means for a period of time. My wife Jessica and I lived on instant ramen noodles longer than anyone should, while putting every dollar back into the business. The early years were anything but glamorous, but we persevered and had patience.
Over time, that compounding investment created something much larger than what short-term withdrawals ever could have: a company that now lets us have it all.
So if you feel like your firm isn’t growing as fast as it should, don’t just look at your strategy. Look at your reinvestment.
Are you actually funding the growth you say you want, or are you prioritizing today at the expense of tomorrow?
Because at the end of the day, it comes down to a decision: reinvest and give your firm the fuel it needs to grow, or don’t and accept that it may always stay exactly where it is.
