Scaling Your Business Without Losing Soul
- Merve Kagitci Hokamp
- 22 hours ago
- 4 min read
What if success didn’t have to look loud?
There’s a particular brand of business success we’ve all been conditioned to admire:
📈 Hockey-stick growth.
💰 Venture capital headlines.
👥 Teams scaling faster than office furniture can be delivered.
🏢 The always-on founder hustle.
But what if that’s not the only version of success worth chasing?
Over the last few weeks—on the heels of some rest & medical leave—I’ve found myself questioning the grind and revisiting the why behind Leadrise Coaching. I’ve also been reading Company of One by Paul Jarvis, which flips the script on how we define growth, ambition, and what it means to build something sustainable.
It’s prompted a big question: If you’re not chasing funding or headcount, what are you building?
Small ≠ Settling
Let’s be clear: choosing to stay intentionally small doesn't mean thinking small.
As Jarvis writes:
“Staying small doesn’t mean staying stagnant or not building something great. It means staying focused on what matters most.”
You can still want:
→ A thriving business
→ Excellent client results
→ Revenue that blows your corporate salary out of the water
→ Ownership of your time, your work, and your values
You're just rejecting the default path that says “more is better” without pausing to ask, “better for who?”
Business of One, Not Alone
At the INSEAD Alumni Forum, I facilitated a table discussion on portfolio careers. There were VPs, founders, solopreneurs, consultants—each exploring how to design work around life, not the other way around.
And what stood out was this:
Everyone wanted range, but no one wanted burnout.
Everyone wanted success, but not at the cost of their sanity, soul, or sovereignty.
What if your ceiling is actually higher when you build from values, not pressure?
Business Examples to Prove the Point:
🖋 Basecamp (now 37signals) has never taken VC funding. They’ve built software millions use—with a remote team under 100. They famously said no to growth for growth’s sake and focused on calm, profitable work.
📚 Danielle LaPorte runs a multi-million dollar business off a lean team, writing, teaching, and licensing content—while maintaining a soulful brand voice that prioritizes consciousness over scale.
📦 Zingerman’s (the deli!) grew into a business ecosystem in Ann Arbor—not through franchising, but by reinvesting locally and maintaining a culture-centric model. It’s a case study in how staying grounded can still scale.
This Isn’t a Manifesto Against Money
Let’s be clear: I didn’t leave the corporate world to play small.
I want financial abundance. I want long-term security. I want a wildly profitable business that allows me to invest, travel, support my family, and give generously. I'm building something with staying power—and I’m not doing it by accident.
But I’m no longer chasing growth for the sake of optics. I’m done performing success just to prove legitimacy.
This is about scaling on my terms.
What I Do Want for Myself and My Business
I want a business that is high-impact, high-integrity, and highly profitable—without being high-chaos.
✔️ Time margin—so my calendar reflects the life I actually want to live.
✔️ Strategic pricing—that reflects the value I deliver, not the hours I put in.
✔️ Aligned clients—so I can say no to the ones who drain, and yes to the ones who energize.
✔️ Creative space—to build intellectual property, write, teach, and innovate.
✔️ Personal presence—because I want to show up fully for my kids, my partner, and myself.
Redefining What Scale Looks Like
For a while, I thought I needed to build a big team to be credible.
But experience has shown me that lean can be powerful. Small can still be mighty.
I used to think I needed to build a big team to be taken seriously. That scaling meant hiring fast and wide. But over time, I’ve realized: I don’t want to manage a huge operation.
Instead, I partner. I collaborate. I bring in brilliant people from my network when the work calls for it. It keeps things nimble, human, and aligned with how I actually want to live and lead.
Growth Is Still the Goal—But It’s Evolved
I’m not against scale. I’m just against default scale. I’m here for intentional growth.
That might look like a quarter-million in revenue from a small client portfolio. It might look like IP licensing, digital product sales, or retainer-based advisory. The ceiling isn’t lower—it’s just built differently.
There is no one version of success. And if you’re reading this thinking, I want both freedom and financial firepower, know this: you don’t have to choose.
You just have to design better.
Final Thought
Right now, I’m choosing lean. Because I’m building with intention. Growth is still on the table. But so is freedom. And that balance matters to me.
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