The virtue of staying small by Zakir Hall

The modern economy has developed a peculiar habit; it assumes that every act of creation is secretly a business plan. Build a website and someone will ask about your revenue model. Start a newsletter, and the inevitable question follows, how many subscribers are paying? Launch a niche app, and investors seem to materialise from thin air to discuss growth, scalability and market opportunity. The assumption is so deeply embedded that many people struggle to imagine another possibility that someone might build something simply because they enjoy building it.

Yet a quiet counterculture is emerging. Across the internet, creators are constructing side businesses with no ambition to turn them into empires. They make tools, publish newsletters, design software, write blogs and launch tiny digital products not because they dream of venture capital or acquisition offers, but because the act of creation itself remains rewarding. In an age obsessed with monetisation, this may be one of the most radical economic choices available.

The prevailing startup narrative treats smallness as a temporary condition. A project is expected to grow, then scale and then dominate. Remaining modest is interpreted as failure or lack of ambition. This mindset has become so pervasive that people often struggle to distinguish between a hobby, a craft and a company. Everything must eventually become a business, and every business must eventually become larger.

But what if growth is not always the objective? The creators who intentionally remain small have discovered something many larger organisations forget. Growth carries costs. More users require more support. More customers create more expectations. More revenue often demands more management, more compliance, more meetings and more bureaucracy. What begins as a joyful experiment can slowly transform into a full-time obligation.

The irony is that many successful side projects become less enjoyable precisely because they succeed. A developer who built a useful tool for a few hundred enthusiasts suddenly finds themselves answering support emails at midnight. A writer who enjoyed sharing ideas with a small audience becomes trapped by publishing schedules and subscriber expectations. The freedom that inspired the project gradually disappears beneath the weight of operating it.

Choosing not to scale is therefore not necessarily a sign of limited ambition. It can represent a different kind of ambition altogether. Instead of maximising revenue, creators maximise autonomy. Instead of pursuing market share, they pursue satisfaction. Instead of asking how large something can become, they ask how enjoyable it can remain.

This approach reflects a broader shift in attitudes towards work. For decades, professional success was measured primarily by expansion. Bigger companies, larger teams and higher revenues served as universal indicators of achievement. Yet many people now view these metrics with growing scepticism. They have witnessed founders become managers, artists become brands and hobbies become obligations. They have learned that scale often changes the nature of the thing being scaled.

The internet has made this alternative path increasingly viable. Digital infrastructure allows individuals to build products that serve small communities without requiring massive audiences. A niche website can survive comfortably with a few thousand loyal users. A specialised software tool can remain useful without conquering an industry. A newsletter can flourish without becoming a media empire.

Such ventures may never appear on lists of disruptive startups. They will not attract headlines celebrating billion-dollar valuations. Investors will mostly ignore them. Yet they perform an important cultural function. They remind society that creation does not always need a commercial justification.

There is something deeply refreshing about a person who builds because they want to build, writes because they want to write or launches a product because they find the process fascinating. Not every project must become a corporation. Not every creator must become an entrepreneur. Sometimes the most successful side business is the one that stays exactly the size its creator wants it to be.