Monday Morning Early Growth Audit

49.4% of startups fail within five years. The most common pattern? Optimizing one dimension while others decay—running out of cash while celebrating user growth, or building features while competitors capture the market. This 90-minute quarterly startup health check prevents single-dimension blindness by assessing all five survival factors simultaneously.

What makes seedlings die? Five simultaneous threats: exhausting stored nutrients (cotyledons), failing to photosynthesize (true leaves), misallocating limited energy, being eaten (herbivory), and being outcompeted by neighbors (self-thinning). Research shows cotyledon damage at seedling stage affects growth and flowering at maturity—early failures compound. Gardeners assess all five in a single walkthrough. Startups need the same discipline.

Are you photosynthesizing yet, or still consuming seed capital? Five sections, 100 minutes total: Cotyledon Reserves Check (15 min) calculates runway—12+ months is healthy, under 6 is crisis. True Leaves Deployment (20 min) assesses revenue generation—generating revenue with >20% QoQ growth means you're photosynthesizing. Resource Allocation Reality Check (30 min) maps where money actually goes versus stated priorities—per YC data, most startups discover their allocation doesn't match their strategy. Herbivory Assessment (20 min) identifies predation threats—competitors, churn, regulatory risk—and whether defenses exist. Self-Thinning Position (15 min) benchmarks against cohort—in early growth, relative position predicts survival better than absolute metrics.

Theranos obsessed over product development while regulatory defenses crumbled. WeWork optimized growth while unit economics decayed. Run this audit quarterly during Years 1-4 to see the complete picture in time to intervene. For the full early-growth framework with detailed scorecards, see the Early Growth chapter.