The Stretch was created / plucked from the ether by my wife one night, when I was stressed and the world was clearly about to end. I was going to bed with a furrowed brow, product challenges, emails I was having trouble answering and a general smell of worry about my person. She told me she’d seen me go through all of that before. “It’s like sometimes you’re stretching, and the company is stretching, but then you grow and you’re on the next level. And you can handle whatever was happening. Then a few months later you stretch again.” So I was feeling The Stretch. Simple idea right? But very helpful, at least to me in my role in a fast growing startup. The Stretch brings with it a few corollaries.