A short YouTube talk by Mike Andes outlining three common stages of entrepreneurial growth and the dominant form of stress at each stage: Stage 1 (0–$500k annual revenue) is dominated by physical stress from long hours and hard labor; Stage 2 (~$300k–$800k) shifts to financial stress as overhead, payroll, and capital needs grow; Stage 3 is emotional and psychological stress tied to liability, leadership, and responsibility. Andes warns that stress doesn’t disappear as businesses grow—it morphs—and urges self-awareness about which stress type an entrepreneur can handle. He frames the motivators that move founders between stages as the seductions of freedom, scale, and impact. Closing identifies Andes as founder of Augusta Lawn Care and includes a CTA to mikeandes.com.
Questions this video answers
0 to $500,000
$300,000 to $800,000
Three to five years
Mike Andes, founder of Augusta Lawn Care
February 7, 2022
Chapters
Hey everyone, my name is Mike Andes and today I'm talking about the three stages of growth in the entrepreneur's journey and how stress is going to play a part at every single stage. So whether you're just getting started or you're building a million dollar business, you are absolutely going to have stress. So to think that you're not going to have stress is delusional and actually very dangerous because you're going to constantly lead yourself and, and set yourself up for disappointment. So the first stage of growing your business is from zero to $500,000 in annual revenue. These are just ranges. This is what I constantly see time and time again. And then these ranges might be off, I made these up. But in that first stage of growth, from 0 to 500,000 annual revenue, this is going to be the stage when physical stress is the type of stress that you as a business owner are going to face. Now this is because you are working crazy hours. Potentially, if you were doing a labor type job, you're actually physically working hard, sweating out in the elements outside. It's extremely exhausting. And that's the type of stress you're going to have. Long days, short nights, working on the weekends, on the evenings, doing your side hustle. If you're in the 0 to 500,000 revenue, you're probably gonna have a lot of physical stress. Now stage two is usually between 300,000 and $800,000 in annual revenue, I find. And at this stage, it's not like stress goes away. It's just a matter of switching morphing the stress from physical stress into now financial stress. Because now the business is taking on more overhead, you need more infrastructure, you're hiring more employees, and it's taking a lot of your funds that you're investing into the business so you can grow and scale, build the business, make it bigger, have more employees. And this is typically where people try to get to because they want to work on their business. They're working in that first stage. They have all that physical stress and they're like, man, if I could just get some more employees and have them do the work, I won't be exhausted all the time. I can work on my business instead of in my business. And it's this great paradise we try to get to when we get there. And we realize this is actually still pretty stressful. There's just a different type of stress. It's no longer physical as much as financial because now you're worried about making payroll. You're trying to grow and expand. So you're buying a lot of trucks and equipment. You have overhead now, you have managers. All of that takes money. And the stress now becomes, can I even afford this? And then you're like, well, if I can just keep growing, if I can just make a million dollar business, keep growing my business. And that leads us to the third stage of business growth and third stage of stress for a business owner. And that is now you move into the stress of emotional and psychological stress. So no longer is about the finances, like, hey, we figured this out, we're growing the business. But now it morphs from financial stress into emotional and psychological stress. Because now you have a massive business. You have lots of employees, dozens of employees. You have a lot of liability. If trucks or equipment goes down or someone sues you. You could literally be sued. And you could literally have the stress of always someone being after you. Now your competition's after you. And you have the emotional and psychological stress of having the dependence of all your employees and being reliant on your business to be successful and providing for their family. That's a lot of stress. You know, growing to the point where now your family looks up to you, they need your financial support. You've grown that business. You are the leader. That's a lot of psychological and emotional stress. So the question is like, why would you sign up to be an entrepreneur? Why would anyone want to grow their business into any of these stages of growth? Well, the first thing is this. The thing that seduces people, the entrepreneur, into the first stage of growth, into that stage when they're having physical stress is going to be the desire for freedom. Freedom from their boss, freedom from a 9 to 5, the ability to create their own schedule and be self employed and do it on their own. And so what leads them into that physical stress that takes so much work during that stage of growth is the desire and the seduction for freedom. And that's what gets them started. And then they're in it and they're growing their business. Like, oh man, if I could just grow and become better and I won't have to work outside all the time and I could just work on the business instead of in the business. And that seduction that gets them to the second stage of growth, that seduction is the ability to scale and grow. So what brings them out of physical stress and into financial stress as they grow the business is the seduction of growth, building and scaling, getting more employees.
And then what happens as the business grows on is now it's no longer about the money. It's like Man, I want to have an impact. And the seduction for impact is what takes that stage two entrepreneur into stage three. They want to have impact on their family and their future financials, of their entire legacy. They want to have an impact on their industry, an impact on the lives of their employees, their community, their church. And now that seduction of growing the business to the point where you can have an impact is what brings them into stage three, where now emotional and psychological stress is high. So why do I make this video? Two things. One, don't fall into the trap of always thinking that if you grow your business, you're gonna have a less stressful life, because it might just change the type of stress that you are actually experiencing. Just because you're not working 10 hours a day and all day and all night long physically, all that strain as you grow the business doesn't mean that there's less stress. It is now. It's going to morph into financial. And as you grow more into emotional and psychological stress as you grow the business, that's the first thing, don't think it's ever going away. Owning a business is stressful. The second thing is remember that being self aware to realize what type of stress you can handle is important. Because I've seen a lot of people that can work really, really hard. They're just fine in stage one, zero to 500,000 revenue, maybe one or two employees. And they're okay with physical stress. They like working hard. But if you ever start growing the business, they get out of what they're actually good at and they get into a type of stress that they can't handle. That's what leads to burnout, that's what leads to entrepreneurs quitting. And at the end of the day, the number one deciding factor of whether or not a small business will win, whether or not they ever quit. Because it usually takes three to five years just to figure out your systems and how to be a good leader and actually how to hire good employees, how does price jobs correctly and have a good profit margin. But most people will never get to that three to five year stage because they either have given up inside of a stage of growth or they're constantly seduced. The next stage of stress, the next stage of growth in their business to the point where they get to a type of stress they cannot handle. And they're so involved with wanting to grow the business and that's the seduction that gets them out of the physical stress into the financial stress. And then they realize they're just as stressed out they're just as burdened. Except it's no longer physical, it's financial. So I hope that you're self aware and realize what stage of growth of business should I be in, where am I going to thrive and what type of stress can I handle? Don't push yourself. That will lead to burnout. That will lead you to getting to a place where you eventually throw in the towel. There is no right stage of growth. Bigger is not necessarily better. If it's going to cause you to fail, it's going to cause you to throw in the towel and it's going to lead to your personal, emotional and psychological damage.
I hope that was helpful. My name is Mike Andes. I'm the founder of Augusta Lawn Care and my goal is to impact. And to do that I have to build a big business. My goal is to change the level of professionalism in the landscaping and lawn care industry that requires me to get past stage three of growth. And that seduction of impact is what brings on the emotional and psychological stress that I incur every day. If you have any questions or you'd like more information, just go to mikeandies.com lots of resources there to help you grow your business.
