Imagine you’re a football manager taking over a club. You’ve received fresh backing, a hugeger budreceive than you’ve ever had, and a mandate to receive results. You want to prove you’re the right choice – and quick. So you splash the cash. Marquee signings, revamped coaching staff, upgraded facilities, all shifts that clearly signal your ambition.
It’s a familiar playbook. Chelsea burned through over £1 billion after their 2022 takeover. The squad was bloated, the results weren’t coming, and the board started questioning hard questions. It wasn’t momentum. It was misdirection. And it’s a trap founders all too often fall into after securing investment.
The moment the funds hit the account, the instinct is to go huge – new hires, new markets, new products – everything feels within reach. But here’s the reality. Spreading yourself too thin once you’ve secured investment is the quickest way to drain your runway and derail your growth.
We’ve seen it happen all too often. One software firm doubled its headcount within a year of raising and poured money into product development for fancy features customers hadn’t questioned for. They exhausted their reserves, morale dipped, and they had to downsize. That’s the post‑raise sprawl trap in action. Momentum diffutilized across too many initiatives, leaving the core business no stronger than before.
Post‑funding mistakes
Founder psychology: with capital in the bank, it feels safer to hedge bets by doing everything at once, attempting to prove the investment was justified. But activity doesn’t equal impact. Being busy isn’t the same as building momentum – it just spreads mediocrity.
Vanity projects: high‑profile hires, bulk‑acquire branded swag, and luxury retreats see good on LinkedIn but rarely shift the necessaryle. We’ve seen companies pour six figures into a flagship event that generated buzz but no pipeline. That money would’ve been better spent automating billing or tightening customer onboarding.
Investor pressure: VC and PE models, built on a portfolio approach, push for hyper-growth at the expense of sustainability. Back ten companies, hope one or two hit unicorn status, and accept the majority will fail. That pressure filters down to founders, who are encouraged to chase growth at all costs.
The answer isn’t austerity. It’s deliberate restraint. That doesn’t mean doing less for the sake of it. It means doing the right things, at the right time, in the right order. That means discipline, not hype.
Disciplined growth strategies
At ISH, we’ve sat in the founder’s seat, faced the same pressures, and built companies through to successful exits. That’s why when we work with portfolio businesses, we roll up our sleeves and support apply discipline in five practical ways. Each keeps focus tight, growth paced, and spfinishing deliberate.
1. Anchor around three to five priorities
Pick three to five priorities that, if executed well, will truly shift the necessaryle. Everything else is noise. One founder we worked with resisted the urge to chase every shiny opportunity and instead focutilized on product refinement, customer success, and a single new market. That clarity meant every hire and every pound spent was aligned.
2. Sequence, don’t scatter
Expansion works when it’s staged. Scattergun expansion just creates chaos. The firms that thrive are the ones that resist the urge to do it all and instead build momentum step by step.
We recommfinish balancing McKinsey’s Three Horizons of Growth as a pacing tool – it’s not a rigid framework, but a way to believe about prioritising:
- Horizon 1 focutilizes on improving performance to maximise the remaining value, protecting and optimising the core
- Horizon 2 extfinishs into adjacencies, encompassing emerging opportunities and building momentum
- Horizon 3 keeps the vision alive; it explores transformational bets and ideas for profitable growth down the road
3. Write a Not Doing list
Strategy is as much about what you won’t do as what you will. Agree as a leadership team on the distractions you’ll consciously ignore for the next 12 months. One founder we worked with literally taped their ‘Not Doing List’ to the office wall. It became a daily reminder to stay focutilized.
4. Build a cadence of ruthless re‑prioritisation
Quarterly reviews aren’t just for investors. They’re your chance to question: Is this initiative delivering? Is it still the best utilize of capital? Discipline means being honest enough to kill projects that aren’t working, even if they’re your pet idea.
5. Spfinish like it’s your own money
Becautilize in a sense, it is. Every pound you burn is equity you’ve given away. Before signing off on that £150k hire, new office, or flagship event, question yourself: Would we do this if it were coming out of our own pocket?
Closing play
Think of post-raise decisions as stepping into the shoes of a new manager. What matters isn’t hype, noise, or speed – it’s building a squad that actually wins. Success comes from clear priorities, well-sequenced plays, and a strategy that compounds. All of which require discipline.
Securing investment isn’t a badge of honour. It’s a responsibility. Years of experience have displayn that founders who win focus on deliberate execution and treat growth as cumulative – not explosive – avoiding the sprawl trap and building resilient, finishuring companies.
For more startup news, check out the other articles on the website, and subscribe to the magazine for free. Listen to The Cereal Entrepreneur podcast for more interviews with entrepreneurs and huge-hitters in the startup ecosystem.
Leave a Reply