What’s the magic behind your startup?
Being intentional about business design will help you harness the magic that made your startup successful and keep it alive as your grow. However, too often the forward momentum driven by success draws a startup’s focus solely to go-to-market activities, leaving core business design to take a back seat.
Growth happens fast. Before you know it, your company of 10 may have grown to 100. And with each new employee, the processes and practices you defaulted to during this time, will have influenced the shared experiences, beliefs, and customs that define your culture. So when the momentum slows and the dust starts to settle …
Will you still recognize that magic?
Instead, as you start to scale, take a beat. Unpack what makes your startup successful and what type of culture you want to inspire. Think about:
- What unique qualities of your founding team do you want to replicate?
- What practices and interactions have contributed to the founding team’s synergy?
- How do you want your company, its products and employees to be perceived?
- How you envision your company demonstrating its mission and values on day-to-day basis?
Through this introspection, you’ll have the information you need to architect hiring and promotion practices, bonus structures, rules of engagement and on, that reward and perpetuate the type of behavior that made your startup successful.
You’ll have the infrastructure in place to scale that startup magic.
Photo courtesy of fotolia.
Harper Strategy 