Decrease in Business

The lake gives up its mist to nourish the mountain — your leaner operation should feed your genuine strengths. Cut the vanity spend, the departments built for status, the projects kept only because stopping feels like admitting error. Line 4 is the heart of it: decrease your own faults first — the strategic blind spots, the fixation on what a rival did — and partners once kept at arm's length by your rigidity come gladly closer. Line 2 sets the boundary: never spend down your integrity or your core capability to make the numbers look good this quarter; only an undiminished business can truly serve customers. Hold your centre, resist rash cost-cutting, and wait for the right moment rather than slashing in panic.

Launch small and sincere. Line 1 says serve, then step back — deliver what genuinely helps early customers without building dependency or over-promising, and don't linger for applause. You do not need the polished stack, the big office, or the inflated headline metrics; you need the offering that works and the honesty behind it. Line 3 warns against the crowded cap table and the too-many-cooks founding team: three journeying together lose one, but the sole honest founder draws the true partner. Be selective in who you take on. What you decline to add now is what lets the real thing form room to grow.