Startups are not about growth. People have to stop thinking that way. Startups are about an idea that's new and not tried before. That's why you can have a medical startup raise $10 million and produce NO GROWTH for 5 years while they work in the laboratory solving a problem and creating a business that didn't exist before. (shameless plug I wrote about this last October: http://jmlite.tumblr.com/post/33443330774/startup-idea)