Steady Growth: The Unseen Expense of Rapid Advancement and the Advantages of Gradual Expansion
In the ever-evolving world of software development, the pursuit of growth is a common goal for startups and established companies alike. However, a recent launch by Jotform, a form-building platform, highlights the potential pitfalls of explosive growth and the benefits of a more measured, incremental approach.
Jotform, who recently launched a new product, experienced a surge in daily visits from integrated agents, indicating that customers were integrating the tool into their businesses on a larger scale than initially anticipated. This rapid growth, while seemingly beneficial, posed several challenges for the company.
When user demand suddenly surges, software systems often get stressed beyond their design limits, leading to performance issues and bugs that surface publicly and all at once. This creates a backlog of support tickets and forces teams into crisis mode rather than thoughtful development. Rapid growth can also cause companies to prioritize immediate firefighting over strategic, longer-term product refinement and scalability planning.
In contrast, Jotform chose a more disciplined strategy, allowing for early detection of problems, optimization of systems before they became saturated, and prioritization of features that really matter to key users. This methodical expansion enabled continuous product improvement and provided valuable customer information, as Jotform customers were adapting the product to their needs in creative and sometimes surprising ways.
The company also made a significant discovery: their AI agents were being used on users' own websites, not just within the platform. In response, Jotform immediately began adjusting these AI agents based on feedback received. By focusing on incremental growth, Jotform built a solid foundation for future scalability, making smart decisions about infrastructure, support systems, and product design based on real patterns, not assumptions.
The benefits of slow and steady growth are numerous. It provides the time and space needed to iteratively improve the product based on genuine, useful user feedback instead of hype-driven noise. Enabling teams to thoroughly test and refine features reduces bugs and enhances reliability.
Moreover, slow growth allows leaders to build a strong operational foundation, such as scalable infrastructure, customer support, and compliance measures, that can handle growth sustainably without cracking under pressure. It supports smarter, measured decision-making that aligns growth with long-term strategic goals instead of reactive short-term fixes.
Slow growth also helps maintain team stability, reduce burnout, and retain domain knowledge, all critical for high-quality product development. Additionally, it leads to better financial outcomes over time, as slower growth strategies tend to outperform fast, explosive growth in profitability and trustworthiness.
Gary P. Pisano, in an article for Harvard Business Review, emphasizes that a more measured, sustained growth over time generates better financial results than explosive growth for a brief period. Therefore, while explosive growth can seem desirable for its rapid gains, it often exposes latent weaknesses and degrades product quality and trust. In contrast, slow and steady growth fosters continuous improvement, operational stability, and long-term success crucial for software companies navigating complex markets and customer expectations.
In the case of Jotform, their measured approach to growth has proven to be a successful strategy, ensuring a solid foundation for future scalability and fostering a sustainable and chaos-free development environment. As software companies face similar challenges when usage spikes overnight, it is essential to consider the benefits of slow and steady growth for long-term success.
- In the wake of Jotform's rapid growth following a new product launch, the company consciously chose a measured strategy, prioritizing continuous product improvement, system optimization, and the development of strategic long-term plans.
- Contrary to the allure of explosive growth, Jotform's deliberate approach to growth has allowed them to build a solid foundation for future scalability and sustainability, minimizing performance issues, and fostering a stable development environment for long-term success.
