For many entrepreneurs, the hardest part is not getting started. The hardest part is managing success when it actually comes. Shopify has looked closer at entrepreneurs who all experienced this problem in different ways, and found that the solution often revolves around access to capital at the right time.
The American Entrepreneurial Reality
According to a survey conducted by Shopify in 2025, as many as 64 percent of American businesses start out as something other than a full-time endeavor. A side project, a hobby, a problem that needed a solution. Only 27 percent started as full-time businesses from day one.
The same pattern applies to many Scandinavian entrepreneurs. They test, iterate, and grow organically. And then suddenly the demand is there, but the capacity is not keeping up.
Three Signals That It’s Time to Scale
Shopify's survey points to three recurring themes among entrepreneurs who know it’s time to grow further:
39 percent notice it when their ambitions exceed what they can deliver alone. 38 percent see it in consistently hitting their revenue targets. And 38 percent use a specific liquidity target as a signal: enough capital to cover at least three months of wages.
Financing That Follows Your Sales
Traditional banks are not always suited to entrepreneurial businesses with strong growth but little history. Shopify Capital offers financing where repayment is made as a percentage of the sales, not as fixed monthly payments. This means that repayments scale down in quieter periods and up when sales are strong.
For stores on Shopify experiencing growth, this is a tool worth knowing about.
