You’ve successfully started a startup, and investors are so fascinated with your products, services, and business model. But your startup is not supposed to stay a startup forever. It will need to grow. It will need to evolve. Eventually, you will need to scale it up.
However, scaling up startups is not always easy. There will surely be challenges and obstacles that will come your way, and some of them may make you doubt your choices. You may feel pressured because you’re supposed to revamp your operations without the big risks of losing revenue or compromising the operations’ quality.
With this in mind, you need to make sure that your business is ready for the process. You need to set some measures in place and talk to people who will help you achieve your goals. If you are looking for some useful pointers for this matter, you are reading the right article.
Check out the following and try to apply them to your efforts:
Start with what you have
Before you obsess with the results, you need to make sure that you have gotten all the basics down. First, you need to look for signs that your startup is ready to grow up. For instance, see to it that you already have established a solid customer base. Try to find out if your marketing efforts have given the right ROI. More importantly, you have to make sure that your resources are also ready for growth and expansion. If your current funds are quite short, you may ask your investor to provide additional funding. But you have to convince them that your scaling up efforts will have great yields.
Set the operations for changes
Because your startup is evolving, you will also need to set it up for the new changes that are going to happen. For instance, if you are hiring more people, there should be a training process ready. It would be best if you automated filing and archiving, knowing that the operations will become more hectic. The accounting department will also have to depend on new tools and systems to ensure that creating statements and balancing sheets will be much easier. Your goal here is to streamline the entire operations.
Focus on your core competencies
As your business grows, you will realize that you will have many departments working together. You may be tempted to bring in-house talents, but that is not always necessary, especially if you do not have funds. So why not outsource some activities and tasks to third-party specialists – the way you outsource the remodeling of your garage to contractors and garage doors installers. When you outsource non-essential roles, you will find it much easier to focus on your core competencies, such as product design and development.
Find great leaders
Your startup will then have more departments, and you need to make sure that competent people are guiding and leading the members. Team leaders, for one, should be independent and decisive. They should have the necessary experience and skills that can complement yours. They should also be visionaries just like you. You may find department leaders within your ranks, but you can always find them in various scenarios and situations, such as industry events.
Go up and grow up!
Scaling up a startup is not going to be easy. There will be a lot of challenges that may come your way, especially if the industry you’re in is in the process of changing, too. It would be best if you were more than willing to adapt and let go of what bogs your business down with his in mind. You will have to keep your eyes on the prize.
