Turn Your Startup Into a Scale Up

So you’ve started your venture, and it has grown up very nicely indeed, even turning a profit. So how do you move from startup to scale up?

First, what exactly is meant by “scaling up”?  Scaling up is essentially growing your business up and out.  Basically, once your startup has become too big, you will need to scale up your venture (more employees, more costs, and more complexity).  It is not as simple as just hiring more people. So how do you ensure that scaling up your start up will be a success?

In an article in Inc., there are 3 things, created out of the necessary complexity scaling up brings, that a startup must overcome to scale up:

1. Leadership:  As a small startup, with co-founders only, it is relatively easy to make decisions.  Once you add employees, it becomes less straight-forward, adding complexities around hiring and delegation.  Many startups don’t scale well because their leadership is not as good as it could be.
2. Scalable Infrastructure: As your startup grows, your infrastructure must also keep pace.  This includes IT systems, office space, manufacturing or delivery systems.  This is essential to ensure both customers and employees are not frustrated by the experience.
3. Marketing Effectiveness: Many people think that marketing is a part of sales.  This is only partly true.  As you scale your venture, you must have a proper marketing plan to target you best and most profitable customer base, which means spending a lot more time in this area.  It is seen as just a small part of the sales process, but without effective marketing, your sales process will never grow in the way you need it to.

So put your processes in place, built a strong base, and create a manageable solution before even thinking about adding on many more customers, and you will be more likely to succeed in your growth.

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