How Long Are You Going to Keep Calling It a Startup?

At some point, being scrappy stops being a strength.

You have customers. You have a team. Maybe you've raised capital. Revenue is coming in. But you're still making every decision, solving every problem, chasing every task, and holding the company together yourself.

So when does your startup actually become a company?

In this episode of Tenacity with Sonia C., Sonia sits down with entrepreneur, investor, author, and business operator Scott Abbott for a candid conversation about what founders often get wrong when they try to scale.

Scott has raised more than $35 million, built and led companies generating billions in sales, invested in startups, and learned some of his hardest lessons by making the mistakes himself, including being fired from his own company.

Together, Sonia and Scott unpack the uncomfortable transition from startup hustle to operating discipline and why the habits that helped you survive the early days can eventually become the very things holding your company back.

They get into why scrappiness has an expiration date, what happens when a business becomes too dependent on its founder, why founders need to understand cash flow and their numbers, and how better systems can actually create more freedom instead of more bureaucracy.

They also talk about founder ego, coachability, burnout, AI as an operating tool, the responsibility that comes with taking outside capital, and why working harder isn't always the answer to a company that has stopped scaling.

In this episode:

• When scrappy startup culture starts hurting growth

• Why some businesses stay stuck in “startup mode” for years

• The difference between building a business and building a scalable company