There is a time in just about every business in which it expands at a rapid rate, and it seems as if each passing day brings in more business than the one before it did. However, in the case of just about every business ever created, there has also come a point at which the deluge turns into something which more closely resembles a river. It has a constant flow about it, but there is no longer a huge upswelling of the flow. The entire thing comes to a sort of plateau, in which growth becomes far more slow and steady than it was during the more growth oriented times.
Of course, no two businesses are exactly alike, either in this regard or in any other one. While one business might end up with only one or two locations total, another business (which might start right down the street) may end up with a huge corporate headquarters and tens of thousands of locations all over the world. The difference between these two businesses is where their individual plateaus end up being for them. While it can have a lot to do with their owners’ individual ambitions, it can also be a lot to do with the business models that they use.
For example, can you imagine how poorly a child care facility would likely end up doing, if there were nothing but senior citizen communities and nursing homes in the area surrounding it? In a case like that, their growth story would plateau at the razor’s edge of going out of business altogether. But if it were in a booming place where tons of young professionals would love to drop off their kids a block or two away from the office, that growth story might plateau with them reaching their 1,000th location and spanning four different continents. There is a lot to reaching a plateau.