Have you noticed that some businesses grow extremely fast while other businesses don't grow at all? Yet another businesses grow slowly but steadily.

For example, let's take Google. The company is celebrating its 9th birthday this year. Google has demonstrated phenomenal growth, hence their owners are one of the quickest guys to become billionaires.

Now let's look at pharmaceutic companies. Almost none of the well established pharmaceutic companies experiences rapid growth, yet almost all pharmaceutic companies grow slowly but steadily.

Finally, let's look at a local grocery store. It has a limited growth potential. Even if it is a profitable business from year to year, still it has a very limited growth potential.

You may object that Google is a big corporation and the local grocery store is a home-based business run by a family. Well, you are right if you compare today's Google to the grocery store. But please notice that 9 years ago Google was a small company as well.

We can conclude that a company size does not have much to do with its growth potential. However, the nature of the business does. This is such an important point, let me repeat it. The nature of the business is one of the factors that determines the growth potential.

Generally, businesses introducing innovative or revolutionary products and services have the fastest growth potential. However, at the same time such companies have the greatest risks. Companies offering well established products and services are usually associated with low risks but at the same time low growth potential.

There are many factors that affect growth potential. Generally, the industry or the segment where the company operates determines the growth potential. As a rule, when a particular industry experiences fast growth, so do the companies involved in that industry.

There are several other factors that determine growth potential, however the nature of the business and the industry are one of the most important factors. We will get back to the topic of growth in the upcoming posts as well.

By the way, the next post will be very interesting. In the next post I will speak about pitfalls that expect you and the most common mistakes that business owners make. So stay tuned, and don't forget to subscribe to the RSS feed.