Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 3/5

Cohen: Stalled companies can maximize profits instead of forcing revenue growth

Jason Cohen · The surprising advice from a founder who built 2 unicorns | Jason Cohen (WP Engine) · Jan 25, 2026 · at 1:19:36

Jason Cohen (WP Engine founder) discusses the final step in his framework for diagnosing stalled growth, addressing whether companies genuinely need continuous top-line expansion.

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“If we define you as this product in this market, in this company, the answer might be no. What we need to do is have a different product or in a different market or a different thing. Or you could change the word revenue. If you say, do you need to grow revenue? You could change the word revenue and say, you know what? What we could do is maximize profit instead of revenue now. We've been maximizing revenue, but maybe we maximize profit instead. And so this is a company like 37 signals or really lots of bootstrap companies who have hit some sort of limit and realize that's okay.”

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