What if your obsession with rapid growth is secretly destroying everything you've built?
Join us for our milestone 100th episode as we sit down with John St. Pierre, who learned this lesson the hard way. After getting fired from his own $50 million company despite raising $20 million in funding, John discovered the brutal truth: growth for growth's sake can kill you. Now, he's built his next venture to over $100 million using seven strategic principles that prioritize smart scaling over reckless expansion. Discover why protecting your equity matters more than raising capital, how to build your own growth engine without investor dependency, and the hidden formula for sustainable wealth creation that most founders completely miss. This episode challenges everything you think you know about scaling a business.
The startup world has been selling founders a dangerous lie: that raising venture capital and scaling at breakneck speed is the only path to success. John St. Pierre's story proves otherwise. After building a company to $10 million in revenue, his pursuit of hypergrowth led him down a path of dilution, debt, and ultimately losing control of his own creation. Six months after raising $20 million, he owned just 8% of the business he founded and was fired from the boardroom.
But failure became his greatest teacher. St. Pierre identified seven strategic principles that allowed him to build his next company to over $100 million while maintaining majority ownership and staying debt-free. The key insight? Your business should fund its own growth through intelligent cash flow management, not external capital that dilutes your control.
The most successful founders understand something their peers miss: sustainable wealth comes from protecting and growing equity, not from impressive fundraising announcements. St. Pierre's approach focuses on building what he calls "your own capital for growth" - generating positive cash flow and reinvesting it strategically rather than burning through investor money on shiny objects.
Smart scaling means knowing your company's self-financeable growth rate and staying within those boundaries. Instead of trying to grow 50-70% annually with borrowed money, successful companies grow 5-10% using their own resources. This approach may seem slower, but it builds unshakeable foundations and keeps founders in the driver's seat.
The culture you build matters as much as the capital you raise. St. Pierre advocates for creating a "culture of intrapreneurship" where team members take ownership of different business functions, allowing founders to gradually replace themselves in operational roles and focus on strategic growth. This isn't about ping pong tables and free lunch - it's about building a performance culture where people grow alongside the business.
Watch the Full Episode on Scaling Smart Not Just Scaling Fast with expert John St_Pierre below:
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