Jim Johnson argues that many entrepreneurs operate in a constant reactionary mode—chasing the next sale, job, or task—rather than following a deliberate growth roadmap. He recounts wanting to emulate larger companies (e.g., aiming for $30–50M) and realizing he should instead study their early paths and prioritize the specific steps appropriate for businesses under $1M.
We walk around this planet in reactionary mode all the time. We, we have the next sale, we have the next job to build, we have the next person to make happy. We have the next piece of information to learn. We're just reacting all the time without having a real roadmap to go, hey, I should be doing this now so that I can do that later. And it's one of the biggest things that kept me from growing early on in my companies was I wanted to be this thing way over there. Like I hey, I knew I was going to be 30, 40, $50 million business and I was trying to do all the things that a 30, 40, $50 million business does because I was trying to emulate them. I wanted to be exactly like them. But what I really needed to do is go back and look at what their path was. How did they get to there? What were the first things that they did? Especially if I'm doing something less than a million dollars.
