Reading a plateau
A flat growth curve is a symptom with at least six plausible causes. Naming the wrong one is how a year gets spent.
Essay6 minPlaceholder entry
DiagnosisGrowthEconomics
A plateau is a shape in a chart. It is not, by itself, a diagnosis. The same flat line can be produced by channel saturation, a positioning ceiling, a product constraint, a pricing mismatch, a shrinking category, or a measurement change that quietly redefined what was being counted.
The order in which those possibilities get tested matters more than the eventual answer, because each one implies a different owner, a different timeline, and a different cost of being wrong.
Reading the curve before reading the channels
Channel-level reporting is the most available evidence and the least decisive. It describes where activity happened, not why demand behaved the way it did.
What this section will hold
- The evidence actually available at the time of the decision
- What was assumed, and what that assumption cost
- The intervention, and the part of it that did not work