Prioritizing growth to sell is a perfectly reasonable business strategy. Being acquired by a larger group at some point (like Poppi’s recent sale to PepsiCo) makes sense for many—to generate cash flow for expansion, take a shortcut to economies of scale or market penetration, or just cash in for early retirement. But not for me.
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Early on in my business journey at Bulletproof, we considered a buyout from a renowned global comms agency. But when they starting asking for growth projections and questioning whether we could achieve them, we walked away. We went on to smash those projections within three years—that’s when I truly started to realize we would be better off independent. Really, who would want to report to someone who doesn’t believe in your vision?
Growing a good business is about relevance, internal culture, and excellence—qualities that risk dilution under a larger group. You can so easily lose your way and what you stand for—just look at the recent headlines around Ben and Jerry’s, with original CEO, David Stever, ousted for the political activism that was always at the heart of the original business. Also, as you relinquish control, you invariably compromise on how you pursue innovation or map the future. It’s why I’ve always put independence first.
But if you don’t want to bank on acquisition in your strategy for scale, how can you nurture expansion, while retaining your independent spirit? In fact, independence and global success go together quite nicely, you just need to embrace the right mindset.
Different leaders will always have different qualities, but independence, to me, is about embracing a certain restlessness. A business shouldn’t just be about creating great work, but about being at the cutting edge of culture—about being relevant.
For that, you need to be constantly moving, searching, never settling. We could be a perfectly good business of 50 people in London, sticking to a clearly defined niche—very well-off but ultimately very bored. Or we can be the business that doesn’t settle, one that embraces new technology, new opportunity and innovation without having to deal with interminable layers of approval. It’s a choice you need to actively make and embrace.
To do so, though, you need to allow yourself to make mistakes. In fact, being able to make mistakes, without being dragged over the coals for every misstep, is one of the biggest luxuries of independence.