Not because we’re trying to run at all costs or prove a point about efficiency. But because hiring felt like the safe answer. And we want to understand if we’re building a company to scale or if we’re about to hide deeper headcount problems.

Since Abacum was founded in 2020, we have raised more than $100 million and tripled revenue without counting. That result is not the goal; it is the result of choosing the harder path at a critical inflection point. Here’s what we learned.

Keeping the headcount flat removes the safety net

Without hiding, possession is inevitable. Every role should be designed around outcomes, not activity. Every initiative must justify itself. If something isn’t moving the business forward, it will be obvious right away.

Pressure creates focus

Instead of adding layers, we optimize early for clarity. Roles are strictly defined. Expectations are up, not down. We set a high bar and put it out there. People are not asked to execute tasks given from above, they are expected to understand the business impact of their work, make trade-offs, and get results from day one.

A flat headcount has a way of skewing the truth. Inefficiencies cannot remain hidden. Priorities cannot be blurred. Weak decisions show up quickly. And while that can be uncomfortable, it forces a level of focus that rarely grows.

We need absolute clarity on the definition of success

We anchor the company around a north star: the new ARR growth, qualified by durability metrics. It’s easy to celebrate progress but solid, efficient growth requires transparency on ROI, trade-offs, and how much you’re burning to get there.

Everyone sees the same number. Burn a lot. Retention rate. Go-to-market performance. Speed ​​and efficiency, side by side. When everyone is running in the same direction with the same vision, decision making is accelerated.

We don’t stop experimenting, but we do it on purpose

Teams are encouraged to test ideas, but not randomly. Every experiment starts with a hypothesis, a clear definition of success, and a plan to quickly measure results. Learning becomes intentional.

Over time, we began to frame every decision as a question of capital allocation. Product investment. Market expansion. Go-to-market bets. The questions are always the same: What return do we expect? What are we deprioritizing? What does success look like?

That framing removes the ambiguity. It replaces opinion and evidence and makes debates more constructive. Decisions are made faster and with more confidence.

Finance has moved to the center of business

Rather than keeping finance as a back-office reporting function, we embed it as a lever for scale. Financially connected products, go-to-market, and real-time strategy. It gives the entire company a shared language for evaluating trade-offs and makes decision quality a collective responsibility.

It changed the tone of leadership discussions. Less intuition-driven debate and more fact-based alignment. Less delayed decisions mean more energy.

Eventually, we crossed the inflection point. The company feels lighter, not heavier. Faster, less fussy. We didn’t just grow up, we understood Why we are growing, what is working, and what is not. That clarity became a real engine of growth.

The lesson here is not that founders should not hire. Hiring is sometimes the right move. But often, hiring can be a shortcut. This can be a way to delay difficult questions about ownership, prioritization, and decision quality. Adding people can make a company feel more secure in the moment while quietly reducing its ability to see itself clearly.

The more difficult path is choosing pressure over padding. Clear coverage. Owning more than headcount. Founders who take that path gain something far more valuable than short-term comfort: a deeper understanding of their business, faster feedback loops, and an organization that remains agile despite its scale. Because the scale is not from many people. It comes from better decisions made by people who own the outcome.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of luck.