Six Business Laws Worth Keeping This Year

Every January, I find myself making some version of the same promises.

This is the year we grow faster.
This is the year we get more disciplined.
This is the year the business finally feels like it’s running instead of being carried.

What I’ve learned—mostly the hard way—is that these resolutions don’t usually fail because of effort. They fail because we misunderstand the rules we’re operating under. We chase tactics, tools, and short-term fixes, when what actually governs growth are a handful of forces that don’t care how smart or experienced we think we are.

Smart founders don’t just collect information. They learn how systems actually behave.

But this is where most entrepreneurs go wrong:
• They seek information, not understanding
• They learn tactics, not fundamentals
• They crave hacks, not laws

Those mistakes are expensive.

That’s why roughly 90% of businesses never reach $1 million in revenue, and only about 1% ever reach $10 million. Growth isn’t random. It’s constrained by forces that don’t care about optimism, effort, or good intentions.

Some rules are flexible. Some conventions can be broken. But these six laws don’t forgive ignorance.

1. Goodhart’s Law
In our firm, we’ve grown up enough to acknowledge the tension between measuring progress and distorting behavior.

We operate with three layers of metrics: business-plan-level indicators, accountability metrics tied to functional roles, and individual contribution measures. Above those sits a mission layer—five broad, numerical guidewires that matter deeply but are not designed to be “hit.” Some may take years to reach. Others exist simply to warn us when growth is bending in the wrong direction.

2. Parkinson’s Law
At one point in our firm’s growth, we built a detailed budget showing when we would need to add executive roles, admin support, and new layers. It was a great exercise—and a trap.

Every inefficiency became a reason to add people. Every team took exactly as long as we told them. Over time, we learned that urgency sharpens thinking while slack dulls it. Today, we fight this weekly by resisting cost expansion and compressing timelines.

3. Price’s Law
A small percentage of people drive most of the value.

As we’ve grown, we’ve found that not everyone is ready for the next step—and that’s okay. Some people are exceptional at the work they’re doing. We reallocate roles accordingly and increasingly assign growth work to those—or AI agents—best equipped to handle scale.

4. Hick’s Law
More choices slow decisions.

Internally, we limit ourselves to a short list of high-impact priorities. Other ideas go into a sandbox reviewed quarterly. On the market side, we stick to a small set of clear solutions. Simplicity isn’t aesthetic—it’s functional.

5. Metcalfe’s Law
I keep trying to break this one.

I’ve chased shortcuts up the mountain and spent millions doing it. Those were my dumb taxes for trying to outsmart network effects. What works is slower: long-term referral relationships built on trust and consistency.

6. Amara’s Law
We overestimate short-term impact and underestimate long-term effect.

We invested early in scalable systems, including a lightweight ERP that was painful at first but transformative over time. Now we’re layering AI on top—small, incremental moves that only reveal their value when we look back months later.

Most New Year’s resolutions focus on outcomes. Better ones focus on laws. These principles won’t tell you what to do next week—but they will tell you what not to fight.