Four Tips to Scale Up Smoothly

You had an awesome idea for a company. You were able to get funding to take your idea to the next level. You launched your Startup and hired some employees and you’ve tested and perfected your product. You’re growing fast and focused on your KPI’s. Customer acquisition costs are dropping and customer engagement is rising. You’re ready to take your business to the next level. You need to scale up but scaling at a speed beyond your company’s capabilities and you risk losing momentum and important opportunities.  Molly Graham, having previously worked for Google, Facebook and now is the COO of Quip, has significant experience with scaling and says, “whether or not you get a chance to scale your company should be driven by the success of your business, a very hard thing to predict, particularly in technology. Some companies scale ahead of success, either due to necessity like in a hardware business or if it’s what their model requires for example in a logistics business.”

McSweeney & Ricci Insurance has helped protect businesses and helped businesses grow for over fifty years. We have expertise dealing with the unique risks facing startups and can guide your toward coverage for every stage. Every startup experiences different challenges while they scale. In an effort to help grow your startup business, below we detail four tips to help you scale up smoothly.

1. Start Defining Roles within your organization– In the early stages of your startup you likely had several “Jack of all trades” working for you. People who do, “a little bit of everything.” As you grow, it’s time to start asking your employees to narrow their focus, or scaling will be impossible. This may entail restructuring your organization so that employees can divvy up responsibilities more effectively, which may not sit well with some and you may even lose some employees who don’t like “change”. Defining the roles, doesn’t mean that employees can’t be creative. Creativity and taking calculated risks should still be encouraged but while keeping the focus on the functioning part of the employees roles.
2.  Find Great Mentors to guide your staff-Hiring good people to manage your business is key for your business to scale. A good manager will take care of the metrics, quotas, reports, systems and processes and will empower your team to challenge themselves. After hitting twenty-five employees, you should move toward and 80/20 split: 80 percent “worker bees or doers” and twenty percent “mentors or coaches.” At a minimum, your mentors should be leaders, and should inspire other employees.
3. Solidify Your Onboarding Process– Make a concerted effort to set up your new hires for success by having a formal training process in place for new hires. Invest a week or at least a few days, to acquainting your staff with all the aspects of the business. Everyone on your team should, at a minimum, understand what your business is about, what challenges you’re up against and why you will succeed.
4. Support the health and well-being of your team-Make sure you have systems in place that support the health and well-being of your staff.  A 401(k), maternity and paternity leave, health insurance and other benefits will keep morale high and will encourage employees to stick around.

Provided above are some quick tips to help your business adjust as it grows. There will be tons of issues that creep up along the way, as you grow your startup. It’s always a good rule of thumb to seek guidance and advice from other entrepreneurs to help answer the big issues that come up. Sometimes change is scary for people and going from a startup to a scale-up may mean big changes. Keep in mind, these changes are all part of bringing your business to the next level. The Startup business experts at McSweeney & Ricci Insurance can provide you with an insurance program suited to each stage of your business. Our varied company selection gives you the freedom of choice in your selection at a price you can afford. Contact us today at 1-844-501-1360 or connect with us via email.

Sources:

“4 Ways to Smoothly Transition from the Startup to the Scale-up Phase” Jim Deters-CEO and Co-Founder Galvinize for www.entrepreneur.com

“what Startups Need to Scale Up” by Adi Gaskell Contributor to Forbes.com 05/30/18

“the Scale Up Challenges Every Audacious Startup Must Face” by Alison Coleman, Contributor to Forbes.com 09/13/15