Slow Growth == Slow Death?

On November 1st, Joel Spolsky wrote another column on Inc.: Does Slow Growth Equal Slow Death?

I found it interesting to read, because it covers an important aspect of business: How fast should you grow your business. Spolsky’s thesis is that if you grow too slow you might be slowly but surely pushed outside the market by a faster growing competitor even though your product is great and your customers are satisfied. The last paragraph sums it up pretty well:

We don’t want to win with lousy products or high-pressure sales tactics. We have no intention of giving up our commitment to good customer service or high-quality code. But we do have to work closer to the limits of our abilities, we have to invest more of our profits in hiring more salespeople and software developers, and we have to focus relentlessly on winning more enterprise sales. We have to do that, because otherwise, we’re going to end up being the company you’ve never heard of.

Even though that makes perfectly sense to me, I wonder if it applies to all kinds of business.