Fewer side projects. More focus. Less empire building.

Instead of "we need to scale to a 100 million,", there should have been incremental improvement.

"we need to serve the next 5% (growth) better than the last 5%." To do that we have to be a better company (incrementally).

And repeat.

Well if you can carry those lessons on with you, then I'd say it was a worthwhile experience. They seem to be obvious in theory, but nonexistent in practice.