Start up to scale up in a pandemic
COVID 19 for our company, HR Innovate will forever remind me of the time when literally overnight 95% of our portfolio froze or bombed. Outstanding invoices were on hold and all retainers cancelled until further notice. An entire team furloughed. It was a brutal 48 hours. This coupled with then being forced into lockdown. Add a 2 month old at home and moving your mother in with you and it’s a wonder I am not entirely grey and twitching somewhere in a corner.
And this, happening the year we were going from start-up status to officially a scale up. All targets and budgets, projections out the window. A new scenario emerged, at once scary and challenging that called for tenacity, a strong stomach and a lean approach.
I wondered at times, is it even possible to scale up during a pandemic, with no staff or real business left, in a world where it was literally dangerous to breathe outside?
Had I just brought our little human into a world that was about to implode?
Sat in our new ‘offices’ at the kitchen table or online via zoom we decided it was a hell yeah chapter about to be had. We had not fought and scratched our way through the last 4 years of start up territory to close up shop and go home. I thought and remembered long and hard the inception of HR Innovate in 2016 when riddled with grief and depression having suffered the worst personal loss, I had taken the decision to take this leap into entrepreneurship anyway. Didn’t go through that to throw in the towel for some nasty-assed virus, no sir. So I figured it was time we adopted my favourite method which is buckle up and get ready for the ****storm we are damn well going to weather. And this is what we did and are doing, and its working. And we are energised and spreading the word, together we can do this. This being our method and MO today….
Same plan — new methods, new flexibility. Virus outbreak or not, we are not a start up any longer so scaling up must continue but with more fluid lines and parameters. Tech at the forefront of all work practices now, so we embraced zoom and skype like never before, we purchased external digital cams and better headphones. We reached out and supported our clients and candidates to do the same.
Same projects and approach — Smaller scale. Instead of aiming too high, we scaled down and planned projects more amenable to our ‘new normal’. Approach remained the same, we are who we are and we are only looking to collaborate with like-minded conscious collaborators.
New attitude. Resilience being rooted in my core, I asked for understanding and loyalty from the team. We were gifted with a fresh, inspiring and fighting attitude from our team. We were transparent and levelled with them at every step and asked for their patience, energy, trust and hard work and we were touched and lucky to receive all that and more from these young people who are all of a different generation and culture but who all understood the survival mode we were now all going to enter into and that we could do it together.
Lean and mean — Admitting vulnerability and asking for help — not my forte or comfort zone. But with help I could not have envisioned possible (and you know who you are), we got top class financial advice and attempted to add structure and leanness to our financial spending and budgets for the next few months at least. I, as head of financials for the company, am attempting to properly learn this part of the business with this guidance, to fully try to embrace this essential side of the business and not just wing it. I owe beers to a very talented maverick.
You might wonder why I would share our solutions with anyone, why I wouldn’t be guarded and competitive. Well the truth is, we discovered what we should have kept at the forefront of our operations all along, this cannot be done in isolation, Success is not just built on your internal teams but it is within your community and business networks, associates and clients that your success lies. If we win, we all win, if we survive and pull each other up by our boot straps then we can get through yes, even a pandemic. SMEs are the backbone to any business community and we must stand firm.
I despise vacuous clichés or hallmark statements but this time it really is true, together we can do this.
