Essam Abdullah is the founder and CEO of TaxRise Inc.
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Picture this: You’ve taken on the risks of running your own startup, including turnover in personnel, not enough funding and misjudging market demand. But through all the uncertainty, you stuck it out and are finally making a profit. Now that you’ve ironed out the kinks, it’s time to take what you’ve created and push your business a little further.
Your company is growing, and while this is definitely something to celebrate, it can bring about a different kind of stress than what you experienced when beginning your startup. Now, it’s time to challenge your team and yourself in order to level up and meet the demands of your business. My transition from startup to mid-sized company happened quickly. There are things I did in the beginning that worked perfectly and other things I tried and failed at, but ultimately, I learned from every decision. Here are the three biggest pieces of advice I have to offer to entrepreneurs making that next big step:
Invest in your practices.
One of the most appealing things about a startup is the freedom. You can decide what you want to sell and how you want your business to function, and you can run pretty easily without overhead and bureaucratic red tape. However, as you begin to grow out of the startup phase, there are things worth investing in that will make your life much easier.
For example, I found it helpful to invest in a lead-generation tool that automatically pushes email addresses into an email marketing program and sends out an email you only have to create one time. This eliminates the need for manual emails and address entries. Here, you’ve made one aspect of your business more efficient and freed up time for bigger projects.
Other things you have to consider as your business grows are regulatory and security concerns. It’s important to protect yourself from legal liability and to guard your data from theft. While this sounds like a lot of overhead, it doesn’t necessarily have to come to that. You can purchase inexpensive tools to keep your data safe. You can also use your legal and IT team, thus eliminating the need to hire outside companies that could drain resources from your business.
Develop clear plans for employees.
As you were getting started, your team probably looked like a group of people who could pitch a hand for whatever needed to be done and knew a little bit of everything. This type of dynamic can definitely work for getting a business off the ground, but it isn’t likely to sustain itself in the long run. As you transition to a mid-size business, it’s important to narrow focuses and functionalize roles. The day-to-day of running a business requires a lot of detail work that looks different depending on what kind of business you have. These small yet important tasks can fall through the cracks if there are no clear roles established. Everything from marketing to accounting, and legal to tech will be amped up as your reach grows and your product becomes more popular.
It might also be useful to consider turning your current department-of-one into an entire team with special positions. Use your employees’ strengths and nurture their professional growth. Promote from within, and invest in those who have been with you since the startup phase. This helps ensure you keep the energy and culture you originally began with. Soon, you could have departments made up of experts, thus increasing trust in your business.
The flip side to this growth is bringing on new employees. Before you start hiring, create a clear onboarding process. What’s the need to know for getting started with your company? You can create crash courses in leadership, content creation or web development — whatever it is you think newbies need to be set up for success.
This isn’t to say education begins and ends at orientation; I personally love continued education, whether that be supplemental books or courses in specialized departments. I can say this from experience: My passion for tech and software development is what allowed my company to take off so quickly. My intimate knowledge of the industry allowed me to see gaps in service, and I wanted to fix that. Once you onboard your new employees and they “get” what you’re about, providing an environment where they can maintain their creative and out-of-the-box thinking can be a game-changer.
Take care of your people.
Earlier I talked about investing in your business’s processes and practices. Here, I’m going to urge you to invest just as much in your team. No team means no business. What kind of systems do you have in place to support your employees’ health and well-being? This may include retirement, health benefits, paternity and maternity leave, paid time off and salary raises, as well as a company culture that makes employees proud to work there. Making and keeping this commitment to your staff as a priority will encourage employees to stick around, keep morale boosted and lure in potential hires of all levels.
It’s also just as important to practice empathy and understanding in your management style. If you create an environment where your team feels encouraged, listened to and taken care of, they’ll take care of you in return.
This is by no means a comprehensive list of what it takes to transition from startup to mid-size, but taking the time to consider where you stand now and where you’ll need to grow is a good place to start. You’ll have to face other tough issues as you become more profitable, but the challenges are always opportunities to continue learning and, ultimately, become a better business owner.
Investing in your practices, processes and employees is investing in the future. What do you want your company’s future to look like? No doubt you see yourself making a large profit, running a reputable business and maybe even transitioning from mid-size to a larger scale. All of these things are possible if you put 100% into your company now.
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