A Growing Startup’s Reflections
Lee la versión en español aquí.
Every startup, once it overcomes the initial stage and is growing successfully, acquires new features. This does not mean losing the entrepreneurial essence, but that it evolves through it: new people join in, new departments open and leadership roles are segmented and take on more responsibilities.
Now, as the new year approaches, what things should be evaluated at this stage of growth of a startup?
Acknowledge mistakes
It is important to look back at the mistakes to understand what patterns are repeated and thus find an effective solution to apply in the next period. At Wolox, we do this constantly but most precisely at the end of the year:
● Strengthening human relations: This year, after stumbling several times, we understood that it is necessary to solve problems right after they happen, and that it’s necessary to involve the whole team to include other perspectives. Also, to avoid these problems, we have to encourage better relationships.
● Firm objectives: In 2015 many decisions were made spontaneously instead of following the plan already set in place, and that has influenced our work efficiency. So in 2016, we have decided to be more organized and follow the previously defined plan.
● Agile job positions: When our commercial director left, all activities within that department were affected, for instance, in 2015 less trips abroad were made, which hindered our sales. From this we learned that people are not irreplaceable in a particular position whereas the humanly added value. Next year, we will travel much more and we will open offices in Miami, Barcelona and Santiago in Chile.
Objectives for 2016
The moment goals are set for the following year it is very important to understand where you want to grow and how.
● Opening of new departments: When a startup grows, roles become more segmented. This implies the incorporation of new specialized employees, in different areas, the company wants to open. At Wolox we already have a Development Department composed by a Chief Technology Officer to whom technical leaders report and a Team Manager Officer to whom the different team managers from different projects report. Also we have other Departments such as Commercial, Quality, Human Resources and Communication, among others. By 2016, the Legal Department, Business Development Department (focused on finding new business to develop, as IoT), and the Growth Management Department (to organize the opening of new offices in other countries) will be incorporated, and also the Innovation Department (dedicated to creating products testing innovative new technologies).
● Professionalization: Following the increase in staff and opening of new departments, we need to be appropriately trained for our roles. More and more people are taking on new responsibilities and leading larger teams. That’s why in 2016 we will organize a training program for leaders and teams to keep on working according to the business’ growth.
● Metrics: To reinforce our professionalism, we believe it is necessary to measure our professional growth. This helps us understand what is happening with our team, for example, in 2015 we only had 8% of turnover rate. Another very important point is to keep metrics updated, so in 2016 we will redefine how we measure all areas.
See also: You have Developed your App, What comes Next? Is There a “Next”?
Challenges
To grow you have to make great leaps that sometimes may be controversial but helpful. One of our most important challenges in 2015 was the change of CEO, following our conviction that this position was going to be rotating periodically. With many pitfalls, we managed to do it very well. The expected happened: we gave the company a different perspective by changing from a CEO who was commercially-oriented to a CEO who came from the area of operations, and so tasks within this area had a lot more focus.
As you can see, the challenges represent a great effort but also make you grow rapidly, so we must never stop setting new challenges ahead that may seem very difficult to achieve but that are not at all impossible. In 2016, we set the following challenges for ourselves:
● 100% growth in staff: 3 years ago we set the same goal. We now want to go from 80 to 160–200 employees. It is the kind of growth we are used to, and this will require a great effort from our team.
● Strengthen the WCulture: Another challenge will be to sustain our culture while the amount of people working at Wolox is doubled. We believe these changes will make the culture evolve but we must be careful so that this change does not hinder the essence and core values of the company. In early 2015, we thought we would not be able to keep doing the same activities we did when we were 30, such as group trips. But even with over 80 people in the team, we did it.
All this is part of our end of year reflections. We believe these resolutions are useful when a startup begins to consider an abrupt growth that may mean going from a small enterprise to a medium or large company. We believe that if these three points are treated closely throughout the year, we can scale better organized throughout the next 366 days.
Posted by
Santiago Bermúdez Baglietto (santiago.baglietto@wolox.com.ar)
Matías Williams (williams.matias@wolox.com.ar)
Nicolás Magni (nicomagni@wolox.com.ar)
