I vividly remember hitting certain inflection points when I was building CCAW. I can easily pinpoint them now because they occurred when our growing pains became almost intolerable. We were accustomed to doing things a certain way, but once we grew past a certain point it was torturous. We hit these points at around $1 million, $3 million, and $10 million in annual revenue.

At first, I didn’t know what was going on so I was frustrated. Everything was breaking and my team was stretched, all at once. We dug in to find the root cause. This meant taking our foot off the gas, identifying what was broken, fixing it, and then trying to speed up again. Over time, I realized what was happening. We were outgrowing our system and processes. We needed to slow down to improve our infrastructure to support more growth so we could speed up again.

It’s funny to think about this now because I was warned about these inflection points by other entrepreneurs when I was first starting out. Yet I still missed what was happening while I was living it. I guess I needed to learn the hard way.

Founders aspiring to build fast-growing companies should be mindful that inflection points in a business are very real. There are lots of ways to overcome them and reach your destination, but sometimes slowing down is your best option. Sounds crazy, but it’s true. Sometimes you need to slow down before you can speed up.