Scaling a Company

Originally published May 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 also to begin scaling and maybe even hit an inflection point. You and your team have, through force of will and many sleepless nights, managed to grow to 10, then 20, then 30 employees. Maybe you think the hardest part of your journey is behind you. It’s not. The journey remains difficult, but the road changes completely. It’s no longer about building something from scratch and convincing customers to use it. Now it’s about getting a group of 30, 50, or 100 people to all work together in sync — especially when they may not be in the same city, or even the same country. Now it’s about maintaining your rate of growth once all the early adopters have jumped on board and 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.

Communicate to support growth

Over-communicate. All-hands and @channel are no longer effective, and you often have remote teams — so use different channels, maintain a consistent message, and give frequent updates.
Communicate the vision clearly and often so the team remains vested and 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 and core values. Ensure everyone knows them and uses them in hiring and performance reviews. Depending on your values, you could even use them to structure weekly team meeting agendas.
Ensure your leadership team is senior enough to handle the challenges of scaling. As you push past 50 and onward to 150, having people around the table who’ve been there before becomes critical.
Build sub-teams so all levels of the organization push in the same direction. Don’t expect 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, and replace them as soon as possible.
Recognize and minimize silos. As you build sub-teams, ensure there are ample opportunities for teams to come together and communicate.
Hire people that fit your culture. Interview for it. Evaluate candidates against your core values. Hiring is hard, but settling can be deadly.

Plan to support growth

Understand the infrastructure (processes, procedures, systems) you need to effectively scale.
Plan your systems strategy so departments don’t end up siloed with systems that don’t integrate or communicate.
Ensure your systems strategy complements your need for open, frequent, and consistent communication.
Recognize the critical importance of automation. Spreadsheets stop being sufficient quickly as you scale — invest in BI tools, sales tools, marketing tools, back-office tools, and make sure they all talk to each other. Automate and integrate everywhere.
Frequently assess existing processes to ensure they’re scaling appropriately and continuing to add value. If not, change them or get rid of them.

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

Put formal processes, procedures, and systems in place so BDRs/SDRs and AEs can be effective with minimal direct involvement from sales managers, except on the largest deals.
Standardize pricing and formalize the approval process for variations.
Standardize your product offering so consistency in the sales process can be built and executed across the organization — this speeds up the sales cycle and avoids the problem of customers comparing notes and finding out others got better deals.

Note: the benefits of standardization apply just as effectively to your other departments.

If you only take one idea from 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 — leading to missed opportunities that could kill the company at worst, and at minimum, a company environment where everyone is constantly putting out fires rather than scaling and adding value. Employees will burn out and creativity will be destroyed. So plan obsessively. Good luck, and have fun!

Example: Core Values, Chewse
Fearless introspection · Intellectual curiosity · Radical candor / transparent feedback · Authentic connection

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