Grow Up Your Start Up
You’ve burned the midnight oil for months, maybe years, on end. You’ve built a high-performing team. You’re delivering a sought-after product, and your clients are happy. But you aren’t finished yet. Operational excellence propels next-phase growth.
By Micki Velmer
Once a team huddled around a folding table bringing an idea to life, now a high-functioning workforce on the cusp of the next big leap. You have momentum coming off of big wins, a few awards, landing a few new clients. Maybe you’ve won another round of funding, or maybe you’ve bootstrapped your way to exponential annual growth. But you know there’s more to be done.
Your fire is burning strong. You blazed a trail to get here. Your sweat struck the flint to ignite the spark. You foraged the wilderness to cut down the timbers that fuel the flame. You laid awake at night to make sure the embers didn’t extinguish amidst wind and rain. There’s no doubt this fire was built from your tireless commitment. And you know this fire can grow higher, burn brighter. The fire is burning so fast you need to constantly tend the fire, collect more firewood, and clear the coals. But you can’t do it all by yourself. Your team is maxed out and needs more hours, more hands.
There was a time you could tackle any challenge and the way was clear. But now, the challenges have grown more complex and require more time than you have to dedicate on them. You’ve outgrown your space and you don’t have time to engage a real estate broker, much less spend a day driving around to view spaces or envision build-outs. You’ve got to be in Chicago, Austin, and Nashville before the next speaking gig in Silicon Valley. Which you still need to prepare for, and the audience will be rich with potential clients. You’ve landed a few new large accounts and you’ve got to scale up the team and resources in order to deliver, but you don’t have time to assess the bandwidth much less recruit new talent that can come in swinging. The product team is waiting on your direction for version 3.0. You have a meeting with the investors right around the corner, and they have high expectations of you as the face of the company and they want to know what’s coming. You need to be available to do what you do best. You’ve built a shortlist of brokers and have drafted job descriptions, but it just can’t get past the draft stage.
Does that sound familiar? If you call yourself an entrepreneur, it should.
You see, the word “entrepreneur” originates from the French verb “entreprendre” which means “to begin something.” Successful entrepreneurs have a talent at starting great things, identifying new opportunities, building strong businesses, and taking great risks. However, their skillset rarely includes the discipline of continued execution. They excel at lighting the fire, and for a while, keeping the fire burning. But, before long, the spark that drives them is ready to ignite another iteration.
Startups are often built on the backs of multi-faceted talent who is comfortable wearing many hats and seizes short-term gains. There’s little time to develop the talent into management, implement performance development efforts, or engage the leadership in a long-term roadmap. Instead, startup teams are often as shoeless as cobblers’ children. At some point, the startup needs to evolve. The team cannot sustain the pace AND the success. Something will have to give.
As an operations leader, I view my role as setting the team up for success and getting out of the way so they can continue to do what they do best. Whether it’s recruiting top talent, developing high-performers into managers and team leaders, or introducing team tech to foster improved collaboration among a remote workforce, it’s all an effort to keep the machine running smoothly and the flames glowing hot.
Successful entrepreneurs recognize when they are ready to pass the operational torch and entrust their fire into the hands of those who can continue to stoke it, care for it come what may, add seasoned timbers, and give it life. It doesn’t mean that you are removed from the fire – it only means you get to bask in the warmth of the roaring fire as you innovate the products and services.
The best-built fires create a community. They serve as the center, the core of a team that keeps them nourished and warm, ready to tackle the next day.
If this sounds familiar and you’re ready to formalize your processes, streamline your workflows, and breathe a renewed energy into your team, let me know.