Beyond Start-up – Scaling up

 

9 Basic steps to underpin your scale up

 

The start-up phase for every business is different. It can last a few weeks or run to many months.

 

At some stage the business has started trading with customers and perhaps a pipeline of potential business.

 

Click on the link to the right of each step for more detail or go to the Scale Up issues sub-menu.

Scale up Barriers

As the start-up grows from the launch barriers emerge. These are different for every business but the founders have critical decisions to make. Scaling up requires decisions on timing of increasing resources and confidence in the acquisition and retention of customers. There will also be decisions around suppliers and partners. It’s a good time to re-visit your Why.
Barriers

Is the scaling up viable?

The increased costs involved in scaling up mean that the break even point will increase.
Have we achieved break even in the start-up phase? This is the time to re-evaluate the business model and the key statistics that flow from the start-up.

Scale up Viability

Review and Reflect

This is a good time to review and reflect on the successes and failures in the start-up phase. Each phase is a learning experience that can help feed knowledge and understanding for the growth phase.
Review and Reflect

Uncertainty about scale and scope of growth

Moving from start-up to scale up reflects greater certainty about the core elements of the business.  But there are still areas of uncertainty.
Uncertainty

Building a Team

This is one of the most challenging elements in scaling up. Funds may be tight but you want to attract and retain high quality people.
Building Team

Ensuring suppliers and partners are suitable

As you grow you need to be sure that your suppliers and partners can keep pace with you. Being let down by delays on crucial suppliers, software problems or support networks can be damaging to the growth plan and also devastating to your brand and reputation.
Suppliers and Partners

Funding the scale up

Moving into scale up phase will require a full evaluation of the funding requirements. You should have tested the viability and cash flow – see Is the Scale up Viable. This provides the platform for assessing the most suitable funding structure.
Funding the Scale up

Stakeholders

The organisation functions in a dynamic and complex environment and stakeholders have an impact in varying ways in to varying degrees depending on the situation.
Stakeholders

Breaking out of Founder Mode

One of the biggest challenges facing every founder. Learning how to lead and delegate is a critical skill for successful scaling up.
Breaking Founder Mode