Excerpt from a Jason M. Lemkin talk advising founders not to use seasonality as an excuse for missed targets. He argues startups growing rapidly (triple digits) should outpace seasonal dips and that founders should expand globally early as a growth accelerant. The speaker cites HubSpot noting Q1 as a strong quarter but warns against accepting seasonality as a default explanation.
Spot is an outlier here so it's great to learn from. But challenge yourself to go more global more early. It is not a distraction. It can be a magic accelerant. Okay, point seven I just found this was interesting that HubSpot called it out. They said Q1 is their seasonally strongest quarter and I hate hearing about seasonality. The reason I hate hearing about seasonality is I find most founders use it as an excuse. Why did you miss Q1? Well, Q4 is our big season. Okay, well maybe, maybe if you're in E commerce or some other category. But the thing is if you're growing triple digits each year, we should not be seeing big declines due to season. Even if it's true, you should be growing so quickly as a startup that you don't actually see seasonality. I usually find for startups it's an excuse but it doesn't mean it's not true. So it's.
