Exploring the Concept of Scalability
Over the years, I’ve spoken with many entrepreneurs who are working hard at trying to achieve their goals. Many are trying to keep their products or services unique from competitors’ and appealing to customers. However, when I asked them about how scalable their products were, I received many blank looks or questions on the topic of how to scale. It seems, in my limited view, as though scalability is not a well-known topic covered in most places outside of economic classes, and as a result hardworking people are not able to reap the benefits if attainable. Having scalable products will lead to more growth and opportunities. However, the concept must first be completely understood.
My colleagues and I starting BLUE1647 knew we needed to scale our impact and had to figure out how to *scale* impact. As we scale, we’ve learned that it’s such a different game. And so often impact also fails at scale. There’s so much ambiguity that the impact units of goodness get so burdened and complex at the organism level. But it’s worth trying, and in our case, it was no other option while operating in Chicago, IL. We also knew that the capacity to scale (and defend scaled) ventures makes for a great ecosystem, especially in order to create social impact.
Having a scalable product or service means that you’re able to expand on it to meet the growing needs of your customer base. Basically, when events occur that require your product or platform to expand, this can be accomplished without increasing your costs. The ‘scale’ does not tip one way or another, because the increased frequency or output is balanced out and as a result, it’s meeting the needs of more people.
Not every business has the ability to be scalable. It depends on what your venture is, and what you’re selling to your customers. If you are working in the service industry, this typically is not considered to be a scalable model. This is because more staff are required to bring in more output and that comes with financial costs. As we scale our portfolio of programming and our platform, we’re perfecting our models, which requires careful maneuvering of supply, demand, and momentum.
Software, on the other hand, is an example of a scalable business. Software can extend and reach out to a large number of people at once. We’re currently building our own software platform in-house to reach and impact millions of people.
The same can be said for a platform like LinkedIn, which eventually grew into the huge company that we know today reaching to millions of people. They did not need an additional 1M engineers as the number of users grew to 1M+. Personally, I find that LinkedIn has reached its potential for me. I am connected with so many people on the site, that the experience is somewhat broken. I joined the site with the intention of staying connected with my circle of professional connections. I now am linked with hundreds of ‘connections’ on LinkedIn and have concluded that LinkedIn is a scalable platform, but it can become too much or lose value to some.
If a business scales, I believe it’s imperative that the user is getting the greatest amount of good out of it. I find that this is the case for certain platforms. Another example of scaled platforms is online market places; if the maximum amount of users is using the site, the experience will be better for everyone. In the market, there are an optimum number of buyers and sellers. There are enough people offering products for the buyers to purchase. There’s also enough demand to buy products for the sellers to create.
Scalability is an interesting concept to think about. The system will be growing fast and stabilizing with the optimum number of users. Once the venture has grown, the system will be operating at its full capacity and will give users the best experience possible.
Antonio Rowry is a 2x entrepreneur, the COO of BLUE1647, cofounder of the award-winning program 21st Century Youth Project, and Code Chicago. Antonio graduated from DePaul University with a degree in Business Administration and Management, where he focused his studies on new venture enterprise and organizational frameworks. With a passion for building organizations that make the world a better place, Antonio’s mission is to enhance the diversity of thought in tech and entrepreneurship.
