Hit 10K in monthly revenue after 14 months but my profit margin was only 3% - is growth always the right move?

Some people say you need to hit that revenue milestone to get taken seriously, but I'm wondering if focusing on profit first would have kept me from working 70 hour weeks for basically minimum wage, what's your take on revenue vs profit as the real metric?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_eva4d agoTop Commenter

Honestly this hits so close to home. I did the same thing last year, hit 15K in monthly revenue after 18 months and was so excited until I looked at my profit margin and it was like 2.5%. I was literally working 80 hour weeks and making less than I did at my old job. Ngl, people act like high revenue is the only thing that matters but when you're barely breaking even it just feels like you're running on a hamster wheel. Tbh I think the whole "grow at all costs" thing is a trap that a lot of founders fall into because we want to look successful to others. I wish someone had told me earlier that a smaller, profitable business is way healthier than a big one that's basically just paying itself.

torres.jason4d ago

@the_eva nailed it - that 2.5% margin is brutal. I've been there too and what finally helped me was cutting every service I didn't absolutely need (like fancy software subscriptions) and raising prices by 20% even though I was terrified. Lost a few customers but the ones who stayed actually valued the work more (weird how that works). Profit margin is just as important as revenue, maybe more so.