Riding out the growing pains. 6 or 7 things to consider as you scale

6 or maybe 7 seems quite random. Psychology suggests that I should be going with 3 or 5. But I’ve got more than that. Anyway… 

You’re at that inflexion point. You’ve gotten to the point where the only way to move forward is to shift into growth mode. Inevitably this means more people, more complexity, more things to do. How can you scale efficiently and effectively whilst still retaining the heart and soul of the company you’ve built? 

Honestly, it’s a challenge. It’s easy to get derailed chasing after new revenue or the next great “game-changing” product feature, it’s even easier to lose sight of the “why” behind it all in the first place. What was it we were doing this for again? 

Here are 6 or 7 things you might want to think about before jumping in feet first. Scaling is hard. Scaling and failing is harder. Not scaling at all because you took too long to make a good decision, even harder. So give some of these a read and a bit of thought, not too much though, because at the end of the day you just have to try something and see if it works 

1. Get clear on your Product Market Fit and Ideal Customer Profile

Too many founders are too distracted by the whiff of a large contract for their own good. You have a product, it does a thing and it solves a problem. Focus on that. 

If you find yourself trying to fit your product into the problem statement that someone has and it’s tenuous at best, walk away. There is a fine line between being too picky, we’ve all had to sell things we’re not proud of to make ends meet (especially in the early days), but be clear about what and why, always. 

If you’re selling outside of your ICP and there is no PMF, then be clear with yourself that you’re doing it because you have bills to pay. 

The more specific you can get in both cases, for Product Market Fit and Ideal Customer Profile, the more targeted your go-to-market plans can be. PMF and ICP inform things like;

• Marketing strategy

• Product roadmap

• Customer journey and ideal experience 

• Support infrastructure

Being clear gives you a focus and a direction, a north star for you to head towards. You also get crystal clear clarity on what you’re not doing and what isn’t a fit. 

Once you have this clarity you can hold your teams accountable to following the plan (and vice versa, founders love to get distracted) and more importantly, if and when you need to stray from the path to pay a bill, you can justify why you’re doing it. 

2. Focus on your people

When you shift into growth mode the most important thing any founder or leader can do is focus on the people who are doing the job. Your role changes from “do-er” to “leader”, it’s your job to make clear decisions and provide the right direction and context to let your teams get the job done. 

The people you have in your team at the beginning may not be the people you need for scale. Depending on your stage in the journey you might need to move from generalists to specialists and that’s fine, but be open and honest about what the business needs right now and help your people make the right decisions for them. 

The culture of your company and your team is in the balance. Culture isn’t based on ping pong tables of weekly Ocado deliveries of nut bars, kombucha and beer. It’s built on (hopefully) trust and respect and a shared vision. Your established team are often the most fired up for success and scale, but you need to engage them in the decision-making process as you determine the next phase of your growth and focus. Open forums, transparent communication and clarity led by data is the best way to keep people engaged through this process. 

3. If you’re hiring experts, get out of their way 

As you need to move from generalists to specialists, you’re probably going to need to hire one or two experts, but which ones, and where? Easy, start with your gaps, for me, I’m always going to bring someone in to be a finance specialist, because it’s important to get right.

The most important thing to note here is that whilst I have a good idea of how to organise and balance books, I recognise that it’s not my passion or joy and actually, given how high maintenance HMRC are, probably best to have a specialist in charge. Switching from “master of everything” to delegating some seriously important functions to specialists is a hard one, but if you’re going to bring people in, get out of their way. 

If you don’t, they’ll get frustrated and leave and you’ll have to start again or you’ll burn out. Or both. It’s time to let stuff go, hire for expertise and then get out of the way. 

4. However, that doesn’t always mean hiring established leaders, especially if you want to retain your culture (hear me out)

This is why I said 6 or 7 tips, because the list has 7 but I could have had 3 and 4 together. I have experienced, seen and heard many start-ups derail because of a bad leadership hire. 

Now, experience is important and for certain roles, especially if you’re no expert, there is absolutely merit in bringing in someone with huge amounts of experience. But it’s not always necessary. Bringing in an expensive CRO (for example) is a good way to burn through your funding and whilst they come with experience and expertise, if they’re not a good culture fit for your business they can potentially do more harm than good. What determines a good culture fit, or how much you’re prepared to move to accommodate someone is up to you at the end of the day, but I’ve seen teams destroyed by bullish (and bullying leaders) who come in and destroy what exists all to furnish their own egos. 

“What’s the alternative?” I hear you cry. I see hundreds of job posts for “Head of Customer Success” roles which are actually senior CSMs. What you need is a senior CSM who is hungry for career development (you may already have one in the team) and an experienced CS leader to consult* with you for a month or two to help them steer the course. You bring in someone to consult on strategy, structure and functional delivery, someone to coach this person into the leader you need, without sacrificing anything you’ve already built. 

*Unrelated note, I can help with this. Drop me a line if you need someone to help scale your post-sales processes

5. Fail Fast 

Once you’ve set a direction, go for it. If you want a culture of failing fast and iterating quickly, then demonstrate and model this through leading by example. 

Don’t chop and change the strategy every week, it’ll confuse the team, but once you’ve set a direction, focus and strategy start experimenting with how to get there and find something that works for you. Once you’ve found it, experiment with how to speed it up and strip the excess out. Have your teams and your leaders do the same. 

6. Don’t let silos form, focus on communication

Again, as you flip from generalists to specialists and “one team” to “functional teams” don’t let people fall into silos. If your teams aren’t aligned and there isn’t clear and consistent communication between functional teams, you’re going to drift off course as people start to retreat into their specific silo. Don’t cut functions into very specific teams too early, encourage collaboration and make sure you’re living up to the role of “Chief Communication Officer”.

7. “No one wins at Business” - Simon Sinek

Don’t get hung up on your goal or your competition.

Focus on your why and continuously try to be better at the thing you set out to do. We often need results by quarter, period or year and we need this quarter to look better than last quarter, but remember that the only way to win for the long term is through sustained innovation.

Focus only on your uncomfortably narrow vision and strive every day for the small improvements which make your whole company better today than it was yesterday. That’s a culture of growth.