Happy Tuesday, Reader!

Over the past two weeks, we've been talking about Placebinding™ (the intentional art of rooting your business in a real place and real relationships) and why it's one of the most reliable paths to a sustainable $250K. We looked at brand recognition and team-building. We looked at relationships and trades as the skills most resilient to AI disruption.

Today, I want to zoom out and look at the bigger picture: what's happening to the American economy, and why I believe both Placebinding™ and the deliberate choice to stay small might be the most powerful strategic moves available to women-owned businesses right now.

Placebinding™ in a World Without a Middle

The more the American economy consolidates, the more local business matters. It's becoming increasingly difficult to build companies that scale in a variety of industries, because the modern American model is about growth to acquisition. We've created a system where there are virtually no mid-size companies left in many industries, just giant brands and small fish, with nothing in between.

We're so deep into mergers and acquisitions across so many industries that the cycle of big behemoths gobbling up anyone who gets large enough to notice has eaten the middle way. A healthy $100 million company, in many industries, is the equivalent of the Kentucky Blue Ash in my new front yard. It’s still theoretically in existence, but endangered. Constantly under threat from the modern environment, requiring intentional nurturing just to stay alive and growing.

The Goliath Problem

I've lived this reality with clients in government contracting, industrial engineering, manufacturing, trades like electrical and plumbing, and of course in SaaS. It's always the same story: Stay micro or submit to acquisition. It's impossible to fight the Goliaths when the sling of taxation and the stone of the FTC and DOJ are not weapons available to small Davids.

Placebinding™ Is How We Choose Great Over Big

So where does that leave women-owned businesses? I believe two things might actually put us at an advantage in this system:

• The willingness to Placebind, rooting our businesses in real places and real relationships, instead of chasing a national audience we can't yet afford to reach.
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• The willingness to choose sustainability over hypergrowth, building something great instead of something big, and to mean it.

Of course, this is anecdotal, which is exactly why I'm so driven by the wish for a larger study. But my experience has been that the push to jump from a profitable, impactful small company into hypergrowth (the wish to be a Goliath) has been the death of the soul of too many of the companies I've worked with.

Some have made it, leapfrogging to a size substantial enough to compete. Most have not. Instead, they chose to cash in their success by sale or investment. This gives the ownership and perhaps a few shareholders a payout, but ultimately kills the spirit of the business that made it so special in the first place.

The future economy, one where women-owned brands can and do thrive, can choose a different way. A way that, to paraphrase Bo Burlingham's famous subtitle, women-founded companies systematically choose to be great instead of big.

Help Us Map the Way With The 6% Project

That's what The 6% Project is really about. Not just reaching $250K, but sustaining it. Building something great, rooted in a real place, with real relationships, without sacrificing the soul of it to the Goliaths.

If your business has done that (you've sustained $250K or more for three consecutive years and chosen to build something worth keeping), consider adding your story to the data. Access the form here.​

Until next time,

Renia C.

P.S. - Not at $250K yet? The $250K Club is where women-owned businesses go to build toward it—sustainably, intentionally, without selling their soul to do it. And if you know someone who's already crossed that line and held it, forward this along. We'd love to add their story to the data.

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