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scaling your startup: a beginner's guide?
here's something that's been on my mind.
when is it right to scale a startup? how do you know you're ready? is it after achieving product-market fit? or after hitting a certain revenue milestone? does it depend on the industry? or perhaps the size of the team?
these questions echo in the minds of entrepreneurs every day. the desire to scale can be intoxicating, the uncertainty surrounding it, paralyzing.
scaling a startup is an art and a science. it involves managing increasing complexity while maintaining alignment with your vision. it's about stretching resources, pushing boundaries, yet avoiding overreach. it's a delicate balance.
there are no definitive answers here, only choices and trade-offs. that said, a clear understanding of your value proposition, a robust business model, and a team ready to level up are good starting points.
any thoughts? experiences? lessons learned? let's create a beginner's guide together. add your insights below. let's learn and grow together.
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André J
1. Make a product people want. 2. Market a product people want. 3. Scale a product people want. If you survive 1 and 2, proceed to part 3 😬
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You're right it really depends on your goal, product, etc, but your good and bad habits become more pronounced at scale. The most common problem I've seen is companies scale faster than they solve bad habits and eventually lay lots of strong people and fire sale the company because the weight of the bad habits becomes too much to recover from.
I've worked in a lot of bootstrapped products and the most success I've seen here is scaling when it becomes a better use of your time than operating.
So what I mean by that is, if I hire a marketing person, the gain from the marketer needs to generate more value than the cost of hiring and supporting. That value also includes what I'm doing with my time instead of marketing. If I can't justify that cost, then it's something to solve later.
@kevjord love it, that’s the best way to do business and i sense you are doing it the same way because you learned early on which many miss. awesome!
If there is:
- a clear understanding of where to scale
- you know what to do for scale
- there is money, which you are ready to put into business
- if you know the language of the new audience
- especially if you have a team (or even 1 co-worker)
GO AHEAD
@shajedulkarim_ yes we have one success startup (working 10 years since 2013). I started it from scratch. Now time for our second one
Let's start from the start!
What is scaling up?
Scaling up in business terms is taking a product to a much larger audience so that some of them will buy and the product will have a much larger customer base.
But when exactly to scale is a million dollar question!
It's easier to find the right time when you're regularly talking to your products.
The right time is when:
1. Your analytics shows great engagement
2. Your conversation with customers shows a spark of delight in their eyes
This is the time when you start your journey to discover more customers with similar needs. And as you embark on it, you observe more needs and integrate those solution in your product.
@paddyroybt love this, and any approach to get the best data from our analytics?
@shajedulkarim_ You need to define the goal of your product. Then define the most important metric to measure the success of the goal.
there can be two kinds of goal - long term and short term. hence different metric.