> A company like Joann's still need to service debt, salaries, inventory, maintainance, etc.

So does the locally owned yarn store, which does it without being in your 401k.

1. Smaller Inventory - reduces supply chain complexity along with the need for full fledged ERP integrations

2. Leasing storefronts - Retail Chains and Big Box brands tend to try to take ownership of the property the store is located on, because at their scale it can have potential savings benefits in the medium-to-long term

3. Family as employees - this reduces the impact of salaries, because profit, customer experience, and employee performance are all directly aligned with each other

4. Relationship-based Sales - your local business will maintain relationships with other local businesses, and be flexible with their own needs as well. That boutique's payment is delayed? No big deal, we'll sell you fabric on credit and you can pay us back when you are able to.

5. Smaller scale - you don't need a $100m influx of capital if you are a single or couple local stores. Mo money, mo problems (and a major reason why several unicorns have stayed private over an extended period even before the IPO window shut)

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There are plenty of difficulties when managing a small business as well, but they are different from those that a Joann's might face.

It must be possible to manage a company in a sustainable way where constant influx of capital is not necessary. In fact the vast majority of companies must be run that way because they don’t have access to large amounts of capital, no?

> It must be possible to manage a company in a sustainable way where constant influx of capital is not necessary

It absolutely is! It's called being "Free Cash Flow" (FCF) Positive - ie a business generates more cash from operations compared to capital expenditures.

Sadly, not all businesses can become FCF Positive - especially if they are heavily leveraged, have significant liabilities, or don't care for optimizing for FCF at the expense of expanding market share or growth.

FCF Positive has become the primary indicator for business health over the past 2-3 years, whereas before the primary metric was market share growth, but it is very difficult to retool or drastically change a business.

More fundamentally, a company like Joann's is dealing with a relatively crowded market (Michaels, Hobby Lobby, resurgence of boutique craft shops), and something has to let go.

I guess the lesson here is that a leveraged growth strategy is a one way journey.

You can succeed with a leveraged growth strategy, such as Nike. A strategy is a tool - it works good in some cases and less well in other cases

I meant one-way in the sense of "one-way decision". If you don't succeed, it's very hard to go back.