I had posted earlier about how I’ve analogize houseplants to businesses.
I want to add one additional observation.
When you’re a new houseplant person (and I can only speak for myself) I was attracted to the idea that growing small plants means there’s room left for growth. That made sense to me at the time.
You want to hedge (pardon the pun).
You also don’t know if it quite fits in a particular space and best of all, you want to feel the satisfaction that you had a hand in nurturing it from a wee-plant to a mature one. There is a sense of accomplishment to it. Conversely, it feels like you’ve “cheated” in some way by letting your local nursery do all the work for you.
Then, amongst the hundreds of houseplant blogs and websites that I’ve visited, I remember coming across a warning that goes something like this:
If you want a fully grown plant, buy a fully grown plant.
I know it seems rather obvious, but let me tell you it’s not always the case when other overriding desires get mixed in! I took that advice to heart. And in hindsight I see that it is already an accomplishment to keep plants alive.
I’m not entirely sure what I’m analogizing exactly. Except that I see why people buy businesses that are “fully grown” and others buy them when they are just no more than “seedlings”.
But I think this much is true: if you want to buy a business, buy a fully grown one.