Scaling a startup is a rite of passage for every entrepreneur. But rapid growth also has its pitfalls. A most pressing challenge for founders is preserving the culture and values of the company as a business grows. Here are some key tactics for scaling your startup without losing its soul.
1. Build a Strong Foundation with a Clear Vision and Values
A high-growth start-up is built on a clearly defined set of beliefs and goals. Sharing your mission is important for making sure that your team believes in what your company is doing as it grows. In the long run, businesses that have strong core values are more likely to do well.
When your firm is developing, it’s extremely crucial to hire people who share your aim and know how important your company’s culture is. Establishing core principles helps ensure that all members of your team are working toward the same goals, which is crucial as your company expands.
2. Prioritize Company Culture in Every Decision
It’s simple, and perhaps natural when you’re losing money every month, to concentrate on outside factors such as sales growth, customer acquisition, and funding. But the company culture aspects are just as important. Businesses with strong cultures see 12% higher profit, a Gallup study found.
Be sure your culture is mirroring how you build teams, not only how you communicate with employees, but also how you go about hiring new employees.
Foster a creative spirit, “whatever it takes” attitude, and determination to excel and succeed in a fast-paced environment of change while promoting creativity and freedom of expression and diversity! Remember that while your company is growing, these are the values you keep.
3. Automate Processes to Maintain Efficiency
The greatest hurdle to large-scale operations is keeping the operations efficient. Processes can get complicated as you scale out your team. And that’s where automation tools can play a vital role.
Tools for project management, CRM, and finance tracking can help in process optimization and can also take off the load from your team.
Automation ensures you can work on the high-level strategy and ensures that your routine tasks are covered. There are a myriad of tools that you can use to automate parts of your business, such as Salesforce, Trello, and Slack, to name a few.
4. Invest in Leadership Development
To scale your startup is to wrangle a larger and larger team. Leadership development is vital in that second stage. One of the key reasons emerging companies fail to scale is bad management, according to Forbes.
Ensure that you invest in leadership programs and that your team members are stepping up and taking leadership roles. This will enable your team members, and make sure you have the right leaders in place to escort the business through the scaling waters.
5. Maintain Focus on Your Customers
It’s important to keep your customers in mind as your company grows. Zendesk did a study that found that 67% of customers would rather pay more for a great experience than a good-to-fair one.
Every once in a while, add new customers and make changes to your product or service based on what they say. This will make your contact with customers more personal. Staying focused on the customer will help you build a strong customer base as you grow.
Scaling with Purpose
Scaling a startup is exhilarating, but it’s incredibly important to scale strategically to preserve the core values and culture of your company. Then you can grow without outgrowing the spirit of your business by concentrating on vision, values, efficiency, leadership, and customer experience.
