As a co-founder of an innovation consulting agency,
In the early days of my startup journey after we established and got a few customers, I was always trying to find different ways to grow it.
Scalability is probably one of the biggest problems startups have to face and that’s why a lot of them shut down.
In order to make your startup grow, you need to make sure you have the right resources by your side like people, systems, mindset, etc.
However, you should keep in mind that not every startup it’s meant to make it big. Of course, you would say sure but that’s not mine, mine will make it. Don’t be stupid.
So, for this to happen you should be prepared, make sure you’re on the right track, the business is in the right phase and the people have embraced that mindset.
Here are my tips on how you can prepare:
Before you started, you should make your fundamentals as strong as possible, this means that your product/service reaches market fit and you can make small but significant improvements based on the feedback and user data from your customers.
Next, you should define the largest core customers- these are the ones that not only spent the most but also are the engine for your business, the largest part of your revenue comes from their spending.
Discover marketing channels with the biggest ROI potential and start testing them with a small budget.
Make sure you have the funds you need to scale. Don’t run out of money when you’re planning to scale your business.
Something else you should pay attention to is automation. Automate everything you can from setting up cloud storage and organization, training processes of new hires, marketing automation, payroll for rapid processing, etc.
This may take a long time in the beginning but it will pay off at the end, since you’ll be able to access data faster, hire faster, market better, and pay easier.
You’re in a marathon, but it includes many sprints. Start winning the little races and you’ll create momentum! —Grand Cordone
When it comes to marketing, it’s definitely something that you should spend extra time and effort on. Because the business can’t scale if nobody knows about it.
Define what marketing channels and tactics work for your business at which of them will provide scalability.
Experts say that word-of-mouth and direct marketing don’t provide scalability like content marketing.
Content marketing has viral potential and that’s the reason why most startups choose it as a grow-hack method. Another thing startups can do is outsourcing.
Nowadays big companies tend to do this as well, but startups are leaner to it since they can’t afford a lot of services to be “in-house” like corporates. Lawyers, graphic designers, developers, etc, don't have to be in-house.
Keep an eye on social media. Every startup especially the ones that are new on the market, is watched and examined by the world.
Maybe you don’t have the power like a big corporation to influence the social media presence, but with the right content showing to the right audience, you can provide not only growing but also surviving to your business
I’ve recently come across this sentence “ If you really want your business to be scalable, it must run fine by itself.”
Let me know if you find this useful, maybe we can help you even further.