I used to know a founder — good business, sound fundamentals, the kind of slow-build story that actually works — who made a decision that cost him two years.
A competitor landed a big contract. The kind that gets talked about. And within six weeks, this founder had restructured his team, expanded his pitch, and started going after work that was too big, too soon, for a business that wasn’t ready to deliver it properly.
Not because his strategy was wrong. Not because the market had changed. Because someone else had gone past him looking comfortable, and he couldn’t help but respond.
Two years of strain, two years of overreach, two years of being somewhere he hadn’t planned to be. He recovered. But it cost him more than time.
I’ve thought about that a lot over the years. Because the pull he felt — the instinct to respond to someone else’s pace — is almost impossible to suppress entirely. I’ve felt it myself, in business and in running. Eighty-odd marathons and ultras and I still catch myself doing it. Someone goes past you at mile eighteen looking fresh, and before you’ve thought about it, you’ve picked up your pace to match theirs. Two miles later you’re hanging on. Four miles later the wheels have come off completely.
The problem is that you never have the full picture. You see their stride. You don’t see their race plan.
I watched it happen to entrepreneurs around me for thirteen years at Key Digital. Someone would be building something solid — patient, consistent, good work compounding quietly over time. Then a competitor would land a big client, or someone in their network would open a flashy new office, or they’d read about a business in their sector raising a round of funding.
And just like that, they’d change course. Start sprinting. Hire too fast. Pitch too wide. Stretch into territory they weren’t ready for.
Not because the fundamentals had changed. Because someone else had gone past them looking comfortable.
There was one year — probably year seven or eight — when a competitor won a contract that stung a little. Bigger than anything we were chasing at the time. There was pressure, unspoken but felt, to respond. To go after larger work faster than we were ready to deliver it properly.
I remember sitting at the kitchen table with Catherine going through it. All the reasons we should react. All the logic that made response feel like strategy.
She listened to all of it. And then she said: “They’re not us, though.”
Not a question. Not a debate. Just four words that cut straight through the noise.
They’re not us. Different margins, different overheads, different pressures, different definition of a good outcome. Maybe they needed that contract in a way we didn’t. Maybe they were buying revenue to paper over something else. Maybe they’d timed it right and got lucky. We had no idea. What we knew was our race. Our plan. The number we were building towards, and the kind of business we wanted to be when we got there.
We didn't change course. We stayed at our pace. And a few years later, Catherine and I walked away with our number.
