Growth is dictated not by total resources available, but by the scarcest required resource (limiting factor)

This fact is also referred to as Liebig’s Law of the minimum. Growth within systems will always be limited by the scarcest resource, that is required for growth and can not be compensated otherwise.

For some things like personal projects the limiting factor might be time or money, but for companies there might be completely different limiting factors, which create bottlenecks or hinder growth.

Examples

• Bread needs yeast to rise and it does not matter how much flour is in the dough, if there is a lack of yeast.
• A shop needs customers and it does not matter how many products or services the shop has, if the limiting factor is the amount of customers.