It's included in the name “scaleup”. A scaleup is on the verge of rapid growth, where all parts of the organization must be able to “scale up” quickly. As organizational advisors, we regularly help entrepreneurs achieve growth and improve the scalability of their organization. Because we want to share our knowledge and experience, we are starting this article series about the 6 focus areas for effective growth. In addition, we draw on our experience in helping entrepreneurs and our own experience with the growth of Summiteers.

We kick things off with: The plan. Where do you start if you want to grow? As a scaleup, what is the use of a long-term growth plan? If you need a growth plan, what should it contain? How do you get your people to grow? We're talking about planning for scale-ups. Paul van Bekkum, one of the founders of Summiteers.

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The 6 focus areas for effective growth

In our previous article series about scale-ups in collaboration with MT/Sprout, we discussed earlier. the symptoms of growing pain, we wrote an article about a step-by-step plan 'from chaos to tranquility' and we dealt with these 6 areas of focus for effective growth in short. In this series, we will continue to build on this.

‍The purpose of a plan

Within a small startup, all employees often still know what is happening, where they are going and where the bottlenecks lie. Formal structure, division of roles and communication often do not play a role here yet. Startups do something different every day, so to speak, and that's where their biggest strength lies. “Of course, you need to be very clear about what you want to achieve in that phase, but a formal plan (on paper) is often less important, because you always see what works and what is necessary. When you then enter the phase of growing rapidly, you quickly run into problems with 30-50 people,” zPaul says. Then you suddenly need the very things that startups were initially averse to, namely: communicate more formally, make more formal choices, have a plan and give people a touchstone so that employees can decide for themselves which customer, project or action contributes the most to the goals. In the long run, you will no longer be able to make all those choices yourself.

So growing often leads to a different way of organizing and managing. You can only let go of control safely with a common dot on the horizon, a clear division of roles and a clear focus. A good plan is simply necessary to keep larger groups of people together. “Compare it to a walk,” says van Bekkum. “When the three of us walk through Utrecht, we stay together and end up at the same point. If we do that by the age of fifty without a route having been determined in advance, there is little chance that we will end up at the same point.”

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What type of plan do you need?

In the ideal world, you can make a plan before you grow, but when the demand for your product suddenly increases, you are actually quickly in the middle of the hustle and bustle. It then becomes difficult to take the time to make a very comprehensive plan, let alone the need for it. “With few scaleups, I see a need for a detailed multi-year plan,” says Van Bekkum. “Every plan is different, but with scaleups, we always recommend looking for the biggest buttons. So what are the two or three things that give effect very quickly? Turn that really hard and see what the effect is. Then, after a quarter or six months, look further, where are we now, where is it rattling, what bothers you the most and then get to work on that.” So the question is first: What are the biggest buttons you can turn at the moment? To find out, you need to know exactly where it rattles. Where are the pain points in your organization at the moment? Founders are often quite keen on that, but it takes effort to get beyond the issues of the day and really do something about it.

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Looking for the “big buttons”

When making a growth plan for a scaleup, it makes sense to zoom in on these three areas: product and proposition, growth strategy and organization scalability.

1. What are you going to market with?

When we talk about product and proposition, we often see that startups sometimes still have steps to make in this before they can start growing. “In a growing startup, product and proposition are often still all over the place,” says Paul. “They tried all kinds of things, one had traction and the other didn't. In a startup, there are often a lot of different ideas about where to take that product. Suddenly, you need a vision and discipline about: where is our product and proposition going now?” In general, startups are very product oriented people, so that's often the right thing. If there are any improvements, we will zoom in with Summiteers on the current product portfolio and revenue models, among other things. Together, you work towards more focus and supported choices.

2. How are you going to sell it and to whom?

In this step, we look at marketing and sales. Take, for example, the example of a scaleup where marketing is going very well, but the sales part has not yet been professionally organized. Paul: “For example, we worked with a cool scaleup who paid a lot of attention to marketing, but not sales. For example, by sticking a nice poster with a fun slogan all over Utrecht. They had everything else in perfect order: top product, but still insufficient image when setting up sales. In the end, it started with talking about: do you know parties that would want to buy this product from you and have you actually called them? Ultimately, that was their key to growth.” So this phase is about: how are you going to further market what is perfect? As a founder, you may first sell the product yourself and now have to explain to a sales employee how to sell the product as it is in your head. This often involves quite a few challenges. Professionalizing your sales process can well be one of the big buttons (provided your product is in order!).

‍3. How do you ensure that you can keep up with growth?

In the next step, it is important to take a good look at whether all the preconditions have been met to scale up effectively. If you don't have that, chances are that the growth you're causing with marketing and sales won't be able to be kept up with by the operation at all. “The best example is a cool lamp that my colleague Dolf once bought on Kickstarter. He waited 3 years for that,” says Paul. “This guy had so much traction on the lights as he kept making them on his own in his workshop.”

Companies that can't keep up with growth often hire people, they don't work in properly, then those people leave, more people need to be added, then onboarding takes even more time. “And then there's the whole point: why do you need process descriptions? So you can onboard people very quickly. We don't think it's important that you have a drawer full of process descriptions, but it's important to make your organization scalable,” Paul adds. This step is not only about creating work instructions and recruiting people, but also about other types of formalization. You look at roles, tasks, responsibilities and consultation structures. Also, don't forget to think about material preconditions: Do you actually have the right (technical) infrastructure to grow, for example?

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Is the plan supported by the organization?

Chances are that all of the above is already in your plan, but then comes the following: do all colleagues also know what you are planning? There is a chance that you fully understand, understand and live through the plan, but that some of the colleagues are not doing that yet. This is why clear communication with all employees is so important. In order to grow, it is not only important that all employees know what they are specifically working towards, but also that the plan comes about together with them. In this way, you increase support. At Summiteers, we notice that it helps enormously to clarify the problem with people. “Then the problem is also everyone's and not what we talked them into,” says Paul. “Very often, the solution comes from within. We explore the solution together, write it down tightly and put our finger on the sore spot. People always know their product, market, customers and technology better, we're not here to tell them that. We then ensure that everyone knows together what they said 'yes' and 'no' to and that they speak to each other, so that they can work with more momentum and focus in the direction that everyone supports.”

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Want to know more about the challenges of effective growth?

In our next articles, we will discuss the following 5 areas of focus in order to grow effectively. In the next edition, you will read more about 'The Machine', how clarifying work processes leads to manageable growth.

The six-tier model that this article series is based on results from the scale-up organization scan developed by Summiteers. The scale-up organization scan helps companies to zoom out, quickly identify possible pain points and reveal any noise between founders and the organization. If you want to exchange views on your challenges to grow effectively or explore whether the organization scan is interesting for you, please contact Paul whether Casper.

Of course, you can also get in touch with us via LinkedIn and our website.