Are you Ready to Grow?
Many startups can hit a great start; they get good traction, low churn rates, and steady profits, but then they get paralyzed by this initial success. They feel the urge to keep everything as is, they believe that nothing else needs to be done, or they strive to maintain the startup spirit by avoiding to stretch their dreams in fear that they would be hard to manage.
They might be right with their fears because growth can be tricky to handle, especially that, in a startup, you might not have gotten all the parts together yet. You might have a great client base but you are missing on creating a client success strategy. You might have the best team but you are not providing an excellent employee experience. All the pieces of the puzzle have to go perfectly together in order to paint the picture of a successfully-growing startup.
Recently, at Knowledge Officer, we have been working with expert Growth Managers from companies like Airbnb, Wuzzuf, SWVL, and more to design a learning path for people pursuing a career in Growth Management. From our conversations with them, we have learnt about the hottest topics and the most common questions surrounding growth management today.
One of the pressing questions that they often get is, ‘what are the signs that it is time for my startup to focus on GROWTH?’
Here is a list of the signs our experts swear by as indicators that your business is ready to move to the growth phase:
1- You have a great core team
A startup is as strong as the people who run it.
Founders struggle with their first hires, and only when they get this part right, can they move to the next step comfortably. It doesn’t matter how small your core team is but you must have committed and inspired people on-board. They must be as passionate as you are about the business and strong enough to face the upcoming challenges of the growth phase.
2- Your team is overwhelmed with the workload
Once your business starts gaining traction more than can be handled by your team, then this is a sign that your team is ready to grow. Targets and business goals will follow team growth. When you grow your team, you will be able to accommodate your users’ increasing needs, and, thereby, achieve higher goals and justify the added cost of a bigger workforce. When you grow your team, you must make sure that your growth team maintains a balance between answering to current customers and thinking about the next steps in terms of marketing, sales, and product development.
3- You are meeting well-established goals
As a startup, you might have started out with some loose goals that you weren’t able to meet, and you had all the excuses for it. By this point in your business’ growth, you must have matured and have defined and established a clear set of goals to your company. Above that, you must be meeting these goals. Meeting well-established goals increases the internal confidence within your team and the external confidence in your ability to grow.
4- You are generating positive cash flow
Profit is good but positive cash flow is another story. Cash flow is the money going in and out of your business. It doesn’t take into account any revenues that you haven’t cashed yet or the bills you still haven’t paid. Good cash flow management means delaying the cash out as much as possible while incentivizing everybody to pay you as soon as possible. Managing a growing business requires increased costs that will often be incurred before you generate enough revenue to cover them. Managing your cash flow efficiently will help you prepare for unanticipated setbacks during growth and prevent your business from going bankrupt.
5- You are turning customers away
Have a lot of customers is awesome, but having too many whom you can’t serve, especially if not within your target market, will have a dire effect on your business. If you have reached the state wherein you are turning customers away, then it’s a big sign that your business is ready to grow. To grow right and scale your business peacefully, you must identify your production bottlenecks and work on them.
6- You have the resources to grow
Growth demands capital, time, and resources. You have to be honest and ask yourself and your team whether you have the resources to grow or not. If you are not well-prepared with all the needed resources to grow, you can lead your startup to an immature death. To avoid this, you should remember that it isn’t the end of the road for you– you can brainstorm how to gather resources to grow your business steadily, or you can consider raising funds from angel investors.
Now, have you checked clear at least 80% of the list above? If the answer is yes, then your startup is ready to grow. And if you need help, we are here to help you and your growth managers with a detailed learning path that will take you deep into the different aspects of growth and enable you to take your startup to the next level.
About the Writers:
This article has been proudly presented to you by the co-authorship of Rana Reda (research & content engineer at Knowledge Officer) and Ahmed El Sharkasy (founder & CEO of Knowledge Officer)
