Lessons in Growth- 5 years in a start-up I’ve only just got started….

7 min read

Sunday marked my 5?year anniversary since joining 10x Banking, I can’t quite believe it has been that long- it genuinely feels like less than two.?

But that is my single biggest reflection of moving from a large corporate to a high growth start up-??

the pace at which you work, the ability to make decisions and get things done and the can do culture make the days and years fly by.?

There has never been a day in my career at 10x where monotony has set in, and where there hasn’t been something new and exciting to get stuck into. Managing to maintain this as the company and my responsibilities have grown is something that surprises me, when I first walked into a very empty office in Kings Cross where the employees at that time could pick a whole row of desks for themselves my initial motivation was to get start-up on my CV, do something new and probably take that experience and return back to the world of banking with a richer set of experiences, and a bump in my grade.?

What quickly became apparent was that this was more than a job, a vision set out by Antony Jenkins the co-founder inspired me to set out on

a personal mission to truly transform banking and its underlying technology

that everyone in the industry knows is holding back innovation, growth and presents an ever increasing risk as the years roll on.?

I never imagined that the opportunity existed to start with a blank sheet of paper and with a small group of very smart people map out a product and roadmap that would enable that vision to come to fruition.?

In writing this blog my aim is to reflect and crystalise some of my learnings on the journey from a blank sheet of paper and a product team of 1 to leading the design, build and run of a multi-million pound SaaS platform through our incredibly talented team of 400 product and engineering folk. I’m humble enough to know we aren’t complete on the mission so take these learnings as a reflection at a point in time and not a how to guide.

Firstly no matter whether your team is the small band of brothers (and sisters) that you initially recruit from your network to get things going or a scaled team across multiple functions and geographies

as a leader you have to be able to deal with a high level of ambiguity and complexity; and to distil this into a clear plan, process and product vision.?

So in that spirit I am going to try and distil my learnings into just 5 key things- the one above is a bonus ;)?

1.?????People- I’ll borrow my colleague Leda Glyptis' nickname of ‘Captain Obvious’ here, in a technology business where intellectual property is your differentiator and secret sauce your approach to people, how you hire them, how you retain them, how you excite them, how you get them to buy into the vision and stay the course will ultimately be the difference between success and failure- both externally and between your higher and lower performing teams.?

In many of my previous roles my success could be attributed to being amongst the smartest and most experienced in the room, I had generally done the jobs (or similar jobs) to those I led and as such my leadership style could be somewhat directive (probably an understatement for those that worked with me).?

At 10x I have had to fundamentally change my approach to how I lead people- from being that person I am now fortunate to work with many big brains, 90% of the team do roles I would not be successful in if I tried, I still find google my best friend in many meetings as I frantically try to keep up- many would see this as a weakness, for me it’s a super strength –

if I can continually learn from talented and smart people then I will grow, the organisation will grow and I am sure there are some areas where people still learn a bit from me.

Having a high talent business though and lots of smart people requires you to create the space and opportunity in your interactions, and processes for those people to do what they do best- it may get frustrating for our more direct personalities but I try to take the time for people to be able to express their view and consciously let debates play when I feel that we haven’t engaged the full collective brainpower.

It’s easier said than done surrounding yourself with smart people, it takes time and effort in hiring, the old adage of for every three people you hire one will be a star, one average and one won’t work out; it has definitely worked its way into the law of averages as we have scaled.?

Dealing with those that don’t work out is the hardest thing- nobody joins to do a bad job but sometimes the culture fit isn’t right, their resillency for the pace of a start-up isn’t there, the needs of the business change quickly and the skills aren’t quite right- not tackling it in a start-up wastes money, drains efficiency and there have been times where I’ve wished I’d personally faced into it sooner.??

Likewise it also means that your progression frameworks and nuturing of talent into growth roles need to develop- something even after 5 yrs we are only just getting properly to grips with.

Overall I am incredibly proud of the people I work with, many have stayed the course and by leading these clever, industrious folk I am a better leader than when I walked through the door.

2.?????Frameworks- I can over index on process and frameworks a former boss of mine once described how my teams were successful by me always putting the bumpers down the bowling alley- there was no way people couldn’t hit the pins.?

I still genuinely believe that well executed frameworks and process drive efficiency, ensure collectively that people are pushing in the right direction and help people understand their purpose and role as an organisation scales.?

A common moan across my teams will be about ‘jira admin’ a symptom of our process implementation, but we have invested time and energy into optimising how we run our business, consciously utilising tools to help build our roadmaps, resource model a fast scaling business to ensure control, and optimising our investment decisions. Over the past two years we have continually honed this by introducing OKR’s and spent time on consciously adjusting our ways of working to remove bottlenecks, including ensuring that those in the work are able to influence and adjust the framework.?

Is our process perfect, no- I don’t ever expect it too be- continuous improvement and reflection will keep us sharp and efficient. But I will make a ballsy prediction that for all the moans a process and framework can create the majority of people that move to new organisations and roles will take large elements of them to implement and achieve similar success elsewhere.?

I don’t think you have to be wedded to a particular methodology, agile principles underpin most of what we do but I don’t measure our success on how well we adopt the handbook but on the effectiveness of our outcomes- so at times we’ll experiment and introduce elements of different thinking- our design process includes the Press Release method espoused at Amazon, we run guilds but not in strict adherence to team topologies.

My firm view is that its all about execution of your defined framework not an endless debate about which one to adopt (honesty moment we have been there- definitely timebox what you spend on that one), adoption of anything new will require months to bed in and be effective- hold your nerve on that otherwise you will flip flop between the latest and greatest new idea or the latest book someone has read before you can truly measure whether the change you made has worked.?

3.?????Mistakes- all of the above come with a ton of mistakes both organisational and personal. In a big corporate mistakes = failure.

Many will read the above and think well it didn’t work like that when you did this. Yes that is true- mistakes will be made, errors of judgement incurred.?

But I fundamentally believe that if you or your teams are not making mistakes then you aren’t pushing the envelope , mistakes are all about risk management- you cannot work in a start-up or scale-up unless you are willing to take risk.?

That risk could be taking on too much work to drive revenue, promising something before you have built it, cutting some scope to hit a deadline. All these risks will ultimately result in both success and mistakes.?

How do you get that balance right- well that’s an art and not a science, and ultimately relys on the quality of your people particularly those in leadership roles to make good, well informed decisions- and your guidance as a leader to help coach and develop them to do that.?

Mistakes have consequences, some risks will push to far, at times some maybe unforgivable and reveal huge errors of judgement. But you cannot avoid mistakes without stagnating the business, and your culture has to allow for them.

Throughout my career and at 10x I can tell you about lots of successes, I can celebrate these, hopefully I can replicate them- but it is the mistakes from which I take the biggest learnings, and for me the key here is that mistakes are not repeated.

If you can grow your understanding of the world and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past then you and your organisation will be better for it.?

4.?????Resilience– I knew from week 1 it was going to be hard at 10x, the level of our ambition the scale of the challenge, we’ve just about reached base camp and I know the next part of our journey is going to be equally as hard.?

I groan reading many blogs and stories about business success that gloss over the hard times. There are hard times, times when you dream about work if you manage to get to sleep, when no matter how well you organise there isn’t enough time in the day, when every stakeholder meeting is negative. That client you thought you had won suddenly goes cold, the revenue you expected isn’t there, your product isn’t fulfilling the vision you hoped for it, the quality bar has fallen.?

That’s not just for the CEO or Founder or Senior Leadership, everyone in an organisation will experience those periods- hopefully for most they are fleeting, the support comes, people rally round – certainly that’s what I feel we do now across our business.?

However I would not underestimate the importance of resilience and flexibility in a start-up and scale-up. You are dealing in the uncertain, it will not always go your way- try and prepare for it.?

Humour plays a huge part here, trusted relationships with your boss, peers and colleagues- you have to be there for each other. Be clear on the acceptable behaviours at points of tension- sometimes its ok to shout at each other if you have the trust quotient- it can help get out frustration.?

How do you prepare for it, I don’t think we have cracked it but actively probing in the recruitment process and ensuring people have an honest expectation of scale-up life, the reality is it isn’t for everyone. Secondly being very conscious of people and how they are feeling, we have weekly check-ins using 15:Five which I would highly recommend it helps us recognise breakpoints early and where the organisation need to provide additional help.?

5.?????Organisation and Culture

As Heraclitus said ‘change is the only constant in life’, within a high growth business that change is not constant but exponential.?

As the organisation grows in numbers of people the complexity of communication networks explodes, the ability to know each individuals name, recognise their face and know a bit about them quickly evaporates- the exact Dunbar number can be debated but as we have grown above 150 people, to 300 people to 600 people we have had to work the org to ensure the efficient delivery machine continues and the culture grows.

Working the org and knowing what the right structures are becomes a critical leadership capability do you accept Conways law, do you try to organise around the functions, where are your skill gaps, when can you survive by someone multi-tasking versus hiring specialism.?

What has become certain to me is that getting the right organisational alignment is key, clear roles and accountabilities at any size ensures that things don’t fall through the cracks as people assume someone else is doing it, duplication of effort can be avoided- critically you avoid territorial politics and aid clarity in decision making.?

It also means that culture can be modelled from the top and encouraged to grow, the right leaders with clear accountabilities and alignment set an example throughout the business, if they are empowered to grow their own culture then that alignment and network benefit of their influence will cascade through the business.

I wrote this blog while flying to our office in Sydney for the first time in two years, just as breakfast was being served so I couldn’t not include??Drucker's, ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’.

Hopefully the above will resonate with people, I’d be interested in hearing and learning from others experiences.

As I said I think we are only at base camp on our journey to achieving our mission to transform banking so after 5 years in a start-up we’ve only just started and I’ll share more of my lessons as we continue to grow.?