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Scaling a Startup Tips For Painless Growth

Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

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Page 1: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

Scaling a StartupTips For Painless Growth

Page 2: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

Startups often have a smaller, simpler and thus flexible structure - and charismatic leadership.

These factors can contribute to a faster reaction time: scaling and pivoting is easier for a startup than for a 100+ company.

Page 3: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

On the other hand - as startups are frequently backed by someone else’s money - the investors always want to know is where that money is going. They’ll ask – is the startup is ready to scale after investment? Do they have a plan for the next step?

Page 4: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

When aiming at growth, small companies should be aware of the fact that their organizational structure will change.They should also be prepared for it.

Page 5: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

Are you ready?

Page 6: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

1. Your product. That means a solid technical foundation - will you be able to handle high traffic? Do you have a good development pipeline? Can there be other use cases for the product?

2. Your team. Your company will grow - hiring is one thing - but do you have the right organizational routines?

3. Your marketing. How can you reach out to the mainstream customer, and not just the early adopter?

Scaling considerations

Page 7: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

You’ve acquired a few first major clients.You have product/market fit.You know your market.

You’ve crossed the Chasm: your product is ready for a mainstream audience: not early adopters who might be more forgiving if the product isn’t technically perfect.

Ready to scale?

Page 8: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

● a solid and repeatable sales/customer process● a plan to raise the right amount of capital -

scaling requires money● a solid infrastructure of systems● reliable people that have grown with you - and

new people to support the team

Scaling involves:

Page 9: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

The team

Page 10: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

The team is one of the first things venture capitalists and business angels value in startups.

How they collaborate and what skillsets they possess often determine whether or not the company’s worth investing in.

This is either solved by recruiting, or by outsourcing the right skill set.

Page 11: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

Finding the right peopleis one of the toughest scaling

hurdles to cross. You want those who understand your

business, know your product and can guarantee at least some measure of success. Getting them on board is a

long-term process and requires the founders’

personal involvement.

The people

Page 12: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

Sales is one of the most important positions in a scaling startup. But it’s hard to find a good salesperson in another country if you’re not there, if you don’t meet that person and if you don’t sell them on the idea. They need to share your passion!

Examples?

Page 13: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

Does your team have the skills and technologies to deliver proven ideas to customers at scale and quality?

Ask yourself:

Page 14: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

Outsourcing?

Page 16: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

In tech startups, particularly in Silicon Valley, you have to start thinking about working with a remote development team early on - as early as possible. There is a tremendous need for talent. Finding and retaining great talent is a problem. You have to look at the world to get help.

By doing this early in the lifetime of the company, you build a specific company DNA, one which allows you to work with outside or remote people.

Page 17: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

There’s a long list of successful startups that have relied - partly or fully - on outsourcing. Low costs and well-matched skill sets have often been the resources behind the success of these start-ups.

Knowledgeable talent at a lower cost? Means you can get all the work done much faster.

Page 18: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

Outsourcing saves you the hassle of recruiting and training new people. It also significantly lowers the costs, and adds extra value in terms of expertise.

Developing a core area or function of your business can be outsourced - but this requires caution.

Page 19: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

Pro tip: “The right way is not to think of your remote team members as outsourcing, but as a key part of your team” - Stephane Kasriel, Product and Engineering Lead at Elance-Odesk

Page 20: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

Going international

Page 21: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

Internationalization - or at least branching out to another country - is often one of the elements of scaling a startup.

Page 22: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

Another reason - competition!

For example: the Nordics are the focal point of digital disruption. They’re the home of industry-defining technologies and tech companies such as Skype, Spotify and Nokia.

This is what the environment for Nordic startups looks like: they’re acting on a relatively tight, small market with a niche product or service. It’s obvious they need to cross borders in order to have a profitable market share.

Page 23: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

● Maybe it’s possible to scale your product within your own market.

● Can you open up to new audiences?

● Can you diversify sales by branching out into other cities?

Yet, in some cases, if you’re thinking of scaling, you don’t necessarily need to think about new countries.

Page 24: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

The product on a new market

Page 25: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

The success of internationalization often rests on the product. It might be dependent on external and internal factors.

Page 26: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

External factors: ● legislation● restrictions● copyright laws● taxation on the foreign market.

Page 27: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

Internal factors:● resources● skilled labor

that knows the foreign market

● a valuable network

Page 28: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

If you’re going international, pay special attention to your product’s name - is it a good fit for the market? Could it be considered offensive, or just plain silly somewhere else?

Page 29: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

● systematically measure your data● know when to scale: premature scaling

is ‘the #1 cause of startup death’ according to author Nathan Furr

● automate repeatable actions

Some last tips

Page 30: Scaling a Startup: Tips for Painless Growth

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