Nope, small companies that don't think about growth while they have the time, cement bad practice.
"Run your small business as if it were a large business" is more about conscious decision-making and awareness of consequence. Do your admin, make sure payroll is documented and people are paid on time, make sure that managers pay attention to work-load and communication, develop work practices that support people rather than assuming everyone is committed to 24-hour days ... sweat the small stuff so that your employees can get on with the thing you hired them for without concern.
It's all those assumptions that get small businesses as they scale. And then - if they survive - they become horrible, impersonal large businesses.
A small business is like a small child. All the potential is there, but surround that child with all the clutter of a poor environment and it will become an adult that perpetuates the system it was raised in.
"Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man," said the Jesuits. They knew what they were talking about ;)
- it encourages premature scaling
- many large businesses have lost the ability to innovate and lost the ability to respond quickly to market changes.
Both of those consequences can be fatal for a startup.