The Two Major Things You Need To Do When Your Company is Growing
Watching a business you started grow and flourish is one of the most rewarding things in life.
I’ve done it twice now. I helped grow my dad’s liquor store and started an agency with my brother. Seeing those two things take off has been tremendous.
As companies grow, many things start happening. It can be difficult to know where to focus your energies, your time.
For me however, there are two major things I did to grow my companies that I would advise everyone do.
Number one
The first has to do with culture, and the inevitable shifts it makes. And of course you want to maintain culture if it’s good; you want to keep that sense of family and everything good that came with being smaller. A natural response to that might be to try and instill the love you have for your company in everyone who works there.
But let me tell you this: as the founder of the company, if you think anyone is going to love it as much as you do, you are out of your mind.
You own the business. How can you expect them to love it as much as you do?
Here’s what you do instead.
Get over the fact that the employees will never love it as much as you. If you’re lucky, there will be people who love it half as much as you. Even if someone loves a fraction as much as you do, you’ve won.
Number two
This second one is quite simple: don’t try and cash in too quickly. It can be very alluring to start getting yourself nicer things. A nicer lifestyle. But the way to scale and grow is to have the dollars. I run my businesses early on at no profit. Some people say “Easy for you now, you’re rich.” But that’s bullshit. I was twenty-eight years old, running an enormous business, making $40,000 a year. But it let me build a $60 million business. That’s eating your own dog food.
There are so many different directions a company can take. But if you focus on remembering the two ideas above, good things can happen.
Here are some more tips I have on scaling growth:
Why You Shouldn’t Take VC Money
The Number One Question to Ask During Periods of Growth
The Difference Between a Company Issue and a Human Issue
Still want more? Listen to me discuss this article in the video below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWrXbuI1I6I
C.E.O EGO Esports & Academy
7 年We started up a small website/graphic design company with 175 bucks and now 2 years later in talks with a 6 figure contract. We put everything back into the business every dime. I'm 33 years old and would like to have my first million by 35.
Managing Director - Whitestone Branding; Co-founder - Vitruvian Sport Systems
7 年Gary - I'm 51 - one year into a disruptive startup that has turned $30,000 govt funding into: - a completed proof of concept - MVP ready in May - residency at Waterloo Accelerator Centre - dev partnership with George Brown School of Game Design - dev partnership with U of Waterloo Engineering (VIP Lab), pending PDF funding application - great relationship with IBM who is providing tremendous support and resources for development of our Watson use case (real deep learning applications - not just Bluemix API stuff) - Planned paid Beta of MVP with revenue target of $60,000 from very limited select participant pool ...and we still have $15,000 of the original $30,000 in the bank. Did I mention that the founding team has not written a single line of code? We will need venture funds to accelerate development once we complete Beta of MVP - will you take my call?
Talkin Pools, Inc.- - talkinpools@ gmail.com
7 年A 65 yr old believer and grinder. Would love to talk over beers!
Strategy, Analytics & Project Management | Engineer by trade | MBA
7 年Pertaining to the two rules, I agree that nobody loves the company as much as executives or founders. That's why I believe culture is very vital and overrated. Just look at Uber. They're in a tough spot because of their culture ecosystem, especially with the sexual harassment. Secondly, I believe that if you want your company to grow..you have to bust your butt short term to make it in the long run. This is very similar to what Jeff Bezos believes. "Build culture, take risk and focus on the long term."
Data-driven, content-focused business marketing
7 年But how long do you keep cycling the money back to the company? If it's a bootstrapped company (zero debt), how or would your advice change?