The popular pursuit of massive user scale is often a trap. For bootstrapped SaaS, a sustainable, multi-million dollar business can be built on a few hundred happy, high-paying customers. This focus reduces support load, churn, and stress, creating a more resilient company.

Outbound Sync founder Harris Kenney consciously delays building internal tools like integrated billing, even approaching $500k ARR. He prioritizes sacrificing operational efficiency 'on the altar of MRR growth,' demonstrating that manual processes are acceptable as long as the core growth engine is firing.

Most SaaS startups begin with SMBs for faster sales cycles. Nexla did the opposite, targeting complex enterprise problems from day one. This forced them to build a deeply capable platform that could later be simplified for smaller customers, rather than trying to scale up an SMB solution.

As a company grows, its old operational systems and processes ('plumbing') become obsolete. True scaling is not about addition; it's about reinvention. This involves systematically removing outdated processes designed for a smaller scale and replacing them entirely.

Contradicting the common startup goal of scaling headcount, the founders now actively question how small they can keep their team. They see a direct link between adding people, increasing process, and slowing down, leveraging a small, elite team as a core part of their high-velocity strategy.

During a 5x growth period, Fixer's support response times went from 5 minutes to 5 hours, jeopardizing customer trust. The team had only planned for their growth strategies failing, not succeeding. This highlights the critical need to build infrastructure for best-case scenarios, not just worst-case ones.

Staying lean is a deliberate product strategy. Bigger teams may build more features and go-to-market motions, but smaller, focused teams are better at creating simpler, more intuitive user experiences. Focus, not capital, is the key constraint for simplicity.