Have you noticed how the pursuit of “billion-dollar brand” status has become the default aspiration for nearly every company with a pulse? It’s the corporate equivalent of “go big or go home” — a mentality that’s celebrated in boardrooms and investor meetings, but often leaves beloved brands unrecognizable to the very consumers who built them.
Chasing Pandemic Ghosts
Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than with brands that experienced unprecedented growth during the pandemic. Snack foods, home fitness equipment, streaming services — they all saw hockey-stick growth curves as our worlds shrank to the confines of our homes.
Now, those same brands are desperately trying to recapture that magic, seemingly without understanding why it happened or questioning whether it can (or should) happen again.
Board meetings across America feature the same slide: a growth curve that spikes dramatically in 2020–2021, dips in 2022, and then magically curves upward again in future projections. It’s wishful thinking masquerading as strategy — trying to normalize an anomaly and build business models on temporary behavior changes.
The Goldfish That Outgrew Its Bowl
Consider Pepperidge Farm Goldfish. For decades, these smiling snack crackers occupied a special place in the pantheon of childhood treats — wholesome enough for parents to feel good about, fun enough for kids to crave. The brand thrived in this sweet spot, building generational loyalty.
Then came the growth imperative, intensified by pandemic-era sales peaks.
Recently, Pepperidge Farm launched a campaign to rebrand Goldfish as the “Chilean Sea Bass” of crackers in a transparent attempt to capture the adult snacking market. Let that sink in. A beloved children’s snack — one whose entire identity is built around playfulness and simplicity — suddenly positioning itself as a premium, sophisticated option.
More PR push than meaningful campaign, it wasn’t just tone-deaf; it fundamentally misunderstood what made Goldfish special in the first place. The DNA of the brand — its child-friendly approachability — was sacrificed at the altar of market expansion and the chase to recapture pandemic growth levels that were never sustainable to begin with.
The Allbirds Cautionary Tale
Yet, the allure of growth isn’t relegated to the pandemic-boom brands.
Take Allbirds — once the darling of sustainable footwear. Their wool runners struck a chord with environmentally conscious consumers seeking simplicity and ethical production. The brand built fervent loyalty by standing for something distinct. Plus, they entered the market at the peak of the FAANG aesthetic.
But that wasn’t enough. As the growth imperative took hold, Allbirds expanded into performance athletics, apparel, and lifestyle categories. Each step away from their core offering diluted their identity. When trends shifted, they found themselves without the loyal base that had made them special, while competing against entrenched players in categories where they held no particular advantage.
Their stock has fallen over 95% since their IPO. Growth at all costs, indeed.
Why Do We Chase This Dragon?
\The question isn’t whether growth is good — it’s whether indiscriminate growth serves the long-term health of a brand. Yet the pressure to continuously expand persists. Why?
* Investor expectations create artificial timelines for growth that often don’t align with organic brand building
* Success metrics focus disproportionately on scale rather than sustainability or profitability
* Competitive fears (“if we don’t grow, someone else will eat our lunch”)
* Executive compensation tied to short-term growth metrics
* The cultural mythology around “unicorns” and billion-dollar valuations
* Post-pandemic pressure to maintain or exceed anomalous growth periods
What if we asked different questions?
Beating the Growth Trap
Before creating that ambitious growth plan, perhaps it’s worth distinguishing between what consumers actively chose and what they settled for when choices were limited.
Questions Worth Asking Before Chasing Scale
When your brand faces the growth imperative, consider:
What makes your brand genuinely special? → Growth strategies that compromise your core differentiation aren’t strategies — they’re surrender agreements.
Who actually loves your brand right now? → Sometimes the path to sustainable growth lies in deepening connections with current customers rather than chasing new ones.
What’s the right size for your business? → Not every company needs to be massive to be meaningful or profitable.
Are you growing because you should, or because you can? → Opportunity isn’t always obligation.
What’s the rush? → Sustainable brands are built over decades, not funding cycles.
Was your pandemic (or scenario-based) growth an anomaly or the new normal? → Distinguishing between circumstantial and earned growth is critical.
Finding Your Growth Truth
There’s something radical about a brand that understands its natural boundaries. Patagonia has famously placed environmental values above maximal growth. Patek Phillippe purposefully limits supply of watches they could mass produce to maintain brand integrity. In-N-Out expands slowly, focusing on maintaining high quality ingredients and a manageable distribution center.
These brands aren’t small — they’re right-sized for their purpose and values.
We’re not arguing against ambition. We’re suggesting that thoughtful, values-aligned growth serves brands better than the “billion or bust” mentality.
For some, this might mean expanding into adjacent categories that reinforce rather than dilute the brand promise. For others, it might mean going deeper with existing customers, building loyalty and lifetime value rather than constantly chasing new segments.
And for some, it might mean acknowledging that being a $100 million brand that’s beloved, profitable, and true to its purpose is a greater achievement than being a billion-dollar brand that’s forgotten as soon as the next trend emerges.
We grapple with these questions for our own business, and we imagine you do too. There are no universal answers — just the ongoing challenge of balancing ambition with authenticity, scale with soul.
Perhaps success isn’t becoming a billion-dollar brand, but rather building a brand that means something to the right people, for the right reasons, for a long time.
What does success look like for your brand beyond the numbers?
