Listen to “#838 Is the “Get Big Fast” Mentality Hurting Your Business?” on Spreaker.
On this episode of The Small Business Radio Show…
The “Get Big Fast” startup era is crumbling. Sky-high valuations, zero profits, and a fixation on rapid scaling have left businesses fragile and the economy unstable. It’s time for entrepreneurs to skip the funding rounds and rethink how they approach growth.
In his new book, “Another Way – Building Companies That Last…and Last…and Last”, former Kleiner Perkins Venture Capitalist Dave Whorton lays out a path forward. After seeing firsthand the risks of speculative growth, he rejected the Silicon Valley unicorn obsession he helped fuel, and now helps entrepreneurs thrive better in our volatile times.
We discussed:
Address risks early—focus on market, tech, team, and financing.
Put profits before growth—build patience, refine in a small market, and scale sustainably.
Leverage a long investment horizon—Amazon exemplifies this strategy.
Run low-cost experiments to reduce risk, cut costs, and drive results.
Why this path has less hype but helps entrepreneurs weather downturns better and contributes to real economic resilience instead of a fragile house of cards.
To push this shift, Dave founded the Tugboat Institute, where he champions self-funded businesses he calls “Evergreen Companies” that adopt these principles and are built to last, not to flip.
- Purpose: Having a compelling reason for existing—a North Star above all else.
- Perseverance: Having the ambition and the resilience to overcome obstacles and keep pursuing the Purpose indefinitely into the future.
- People First: Engaging a workforce of talented associates who excel as a team and are motivated by the Purpose and the culture, as well as by total compensation, in the belief that, by taking care of them, they will take care of the customers, suppliers, partners, communities, and their families.
- Private: Taking advantage of the ability of closely held private companies to have a longer-term view, greater confidentiality around strategies, and more operating flexibility than public or exit-oriented businesses.
- Profit: Not mistaking profit as the purpose of the business, but recognizing it is essential to survival and independence, and the most accurate measure of customer value delivered. Paced Growth: Having the discipline to focus on long-term strategy, balance short-term and long-term performance, and grow steadily and consistently from year to year.
- Pragmatic Innovation: Embracing a continuous-improvement
Segment 2 with Marcelo Barros starts at 20:28.
Phishing attacks are forever changing and getting more creative. What do we need to know as small business owners and how should be educate our team?
Marcelo Barros is the Global Director of Hacker Rangers which facilitates security education through gamification. He is an IT professional with over 30 years of experience and a strong interest in cybersecurity. As the Global Markets Leader at Hacker Rangers, a gamification company, he spearheads the company’s expansion into markets outside of Brazil. Before this position, Marcelo dedicated 17 years to IBM, where he worked in cybersecurity, sales, and management, delivering solutions and achieving outcomes.
We discussed:
- The gamified phishing training: How cyber crooks are getting more creative
- How can companies train employees to avoid the emerging threat of phishing attacks?
- Top-of-the-line cybersecurity advice from a leading industry expert on how to defend against phishing.
- How does Hacker Rangers help fight phishing attacks and educate through gamification?
