Scaling a Company

Originally published May 25, 2018

From 50-100, from 50-200, from 100-500

You're an early stage startup founder, and after lots of slogging and multiple near deaths, you've achieved the improbable: You've survived long enough to not only achieve product-market fit but to also begin to scale and maybe even hit an inflection point. You & your team have, through the force of will & many sleepless nights, managed to grow to 10 then 20 then 30 employees. Maybe you think the hardest part of your journey is past you. It's not. The journey remains difficult, but the road changes completely. It's no longer about building something from scratch & convincing customers to use it. Now, it's how do you get a group of 30 or 50 or 100 people to all work together in sync, especially when those people may not be in the same city or even in the same country? Now, it's how do you maintain your rate of growth when all the early adopters have already jumped on board & now you have to convince the mainstream? Each company's journey is different, and there are no shortcuts, but the following points should provide a solid roadmap for this next phase of your journey.

• Communicate to support growth

  • Over communicate. Because all-hands & @channel is no longer effective, because oftentimes you've got remote teams, keeping everyone on the same page is critical. So over-communicate. Use different channels. Maintain a consistent message. Give frequent updates.

  • Communicate the vision clearly & often so that the team remains vested & focused

  • Focus on one big milestone at a time. Minimize confusion, keep everyone on the same narrow path

• Build culture & teams to support growth

  • Define your culture. Define your core values. Ensure everyone knows them & uses them in hiring & performance reviews. Depending on your core values, you could even use them to structure agendas for your weekly team meetings

  • Ensure your leadership team is senior enough to handle the challenges of scaling. Maybe you moved inexperienced people in to leadership positions when you were 15-people strong . As you push past 50 and onward to 150, having folks around the table that have been there before & can advise what's coming down the road becomes critical (see the next section, Plan to support growth)

  • Sub-teams need to be built to ensure that all levels of the organization are pushing in the same direction. In other words, don't expect your managers to manage more than 5-7 people, at least not if you want them to manage effectively

  • Be vigilant to spot team members who aren't capable of scaling with the company & replace them as soon as possible

  • Manage team size: Managers should manage no more than 5-7 people. Communication, teamwork, & one-on-one guidance, mentoring, and coaching become impossible in teams larger than that.

  • Recognize & minimize silos. While you're building out these sub-teams recognize the risk that they can then become siloed. Ensure that there are ample opportunities for teams to come together and communicate.

  • Hire people that fit your culture. Interview for it. Evaluate candidates based on your core values. Hiring is hard, but settling can be deadly.

• Plan to support growth

  • Understand the infrastructure you need (processes, procedures, systems) to be able to effectively scale

  • Plan out your systems strategy so that various departments don't end up with siloed systems that don't integrate or communicate with other systems

  • Ensure your systems strategy complements your need for open, frequent, and consistent communication

  • Systems strategy also needs to recognize the critical importance of automation. Spreadsheets stop being sufficient really quickly as you scale. Invest in business intelligence (BI) tools. Invest in sales tools. Invest in marketing tools. Invest in back-office tools. And then make sure they all talk to each other. Automate & integrate everywhere.

  • Frequently assess existing processes to ensure they're scaling appropriately & continuing to add value to the organization. If not, change them or get rid of them

• Build sales teams to support growth (primarily for B2B companies)

  • Put in place formal processes & procedures & systems so that BDRs/SDRs & AEs can be effective w/minimal direct /involvement from sales managers & senior managers except for the largest deals

  • Standardize pricing & formalize approval process for variations

  • Standardize product offering so consistency in sales process can be built & executed across the organization. This will allow the sales cycle to speed up & can avoid problems of customers talking & finding out others got better deals

  • NOTE: The benefits of standardization can apply just as effectively to your other departments.

If you only take one idea out of the above, it's plan. Plan out all aspects of your organization, from team, to processes, to systems, to cash. Without planning, you'll be forever in catch up mode. This will lead to missed business opportunities that could kill the company at the worst. At a minimum, it'll create a company environment where everyone is constantly putting out fires rather than scaling & adding value. Employees will burn out and creativity will be destroyed. So plan obsessively.

Good luck & have fun!

• Core Values (Chewse)

  • Fearless introspection

  • Intellectual curiosity

  • Radical candor / Transparent feedback

  • Authentic connection