This growth steps timeline depicts four stages: start-up, growth, maturity, and renewal/decline. A quick Google search will reveal a plethora of other viewpoints on the growth phases of businesses. These cycles have one major thing in common: they depict a generalized version of how businesses grow. They also offer useful insights for business owners and managers, who can use the theories to gain details into the types of challenges and opportunities that their company may face in the future. This can be used with business growth metrics to help businesses plan for the future. The four-stage theory divides growth into four stages: start-up, growth, maturity, and renewal/decline.
