The Secret to Managing Rapid Growth

Forty-eight months.

That’s how long it took for VARIDESK to jump from officially becoming a company with two founders to one with more than 200 employees. If VARIDESK were a person, it would be a toddler who's just now learning ABCs and nursery rhymes.

Instead, our company is poised to turn the furniture industry upside down.

To say our growth has been off-the-charts would be an understatement. But with rapid growth comes growing pains. I’ve learned many lessons along the way – especially in the early days – as I navigated where to dedicate time, energy, and resources.

Here’s what I learned:

1.     Build a team of entrepreneurial people. Like any entrepreneur launching a business, there is very little time to relax. There was (and is) so much work to be done, especially in staffing. Very quickly, I recruited talented players with entrepreneurial DNA. Their natural make-up allowed them to roll with whatever came their way. Once aboard, all they need is an oar and they can start rowing with little guidance.

2.     Find fans who love your business.  VARIDESK has highly enthusiastic and engaged customers. From the start, we discovered our product line had super-fans. The number one word they used to describe how they felt about our product was “love” – that’s pretty remarkable. Consequently, those end-user relationships became our motivator. What do our fans like about our products? What do they not like? How can we build a more robust relationship? How can we help them live happier, healthier, more productive lives? Looking at everything through that lens is key.

3.     Keep your eyes open. Despite having a solid team and serious loyalists, we couldn’t drop our guard. I had seen other organizations fail because they didn’t forecast common challenges like misunderstanding profit and cash-on-hand, or simply keeping up with customer service as sales accelerate.

4.     Listen and revise. We borrowed a tactic used by some of the best visionaries like Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos: We asked for feedback and allowed it to elevate our thinking, changing the way we viewed the business and freeing us from the destruction of myopic thinking.

These are just a few of the nuggets I’ve picked up along the way. What challenges are you facing as you scale? What strategies are you using to manage them? I’d love to hear from you, and learn from you, too.