Investor Paul Graham makes a good case[78] that above all else, a startup is a company designed to grow fast. In fact, it’s this growth that distinguishes a startup from other new ventures like a cobbler or a restaurant. Startups, Paul says, go through three distinct growth phases: slow, where the organization is searching for a product and market to tackle; fast, where it has figured out how to make and sell it at scale; and slow again, as it becomes a big company and encounters internal constraints or market saturation, and tries to overcome Porter’s “hole in the middle.”
