Growth is killing your business. Not stagnation. Growth. Most founders celebrate "progress" without ever checking if their rate of change is fast enough to hit their goal before they run out of cash.

Your goal: $10M revenue. You're at: $2M. You're growing: $100K/year. That's progress. It's also an 80-year timeline. You'll be dead before you arrive. But you'll feel good the whole way because the line is going up.

This is what I call getting "mesmerized by progress." The line is going up. So you stop questioning whether it's going up fast enough. Progress means you're moving forward. Acceptable rate of change means you're moving fast enough to hit your number by your deadline. Most founders never make this distinction.

Then comes the lie: "The hockey stick is coming." Founders look at slow, linear growth and convince themselves it's about to go parabolic. It's not. Linear growth begets linear growth. If you're adding 10 users/day and need 100K by month end, you're off by orders of magnitude.

Optimism doesn't fix math. Here's what does: 1. Set a goal with a specific number AND a specific date. Not "grow revenue." "$10M by December 31st."

2. Check your rate of change in WEEK ONE. Not month six. If the daily numbers don't match what your spreadsheet requires to hit the goal, alarm bells should already be going off. If your rate is unacceptable, your strategy is a failure.