Start-up advice is easy to find, but what about firms that have survived those crucial first three years but are looking to expand? In this article, Philip Rooke, CEO of Spreadshirt offers tips ion moving your business from a start-up to a grown-up.
The world is awash with advice on how to start up your business. From taking the leap to marketing your first product, there are plenty of places to look for investment and knowledge. But what happens when you’ve made it through those crucial first three years? How do you move from start-up to grown-up? There’s not much discussion about this awkward growth phase, but it can be as difficult at setting up in the first place. And it’s not a linear process either. It is often a time of pivoting, feeling swamped and fending off me-too businesses.
We’ve done a lot of growing up in the last few years at Spreadshirt. Becoming consistently profitable is hard work and it’s not always straight forward. So what’s been our experience in the online retailing sector?
Like many growing businesses, we wanted to do lots of things, to offer everything we possibly could to our customers. Start-ups don’t want to rule anything out. We realised that it’s not possible to be all things to all people. In our awkward phase, we worked on too many customised and individual solutions for single partners, but now we find more satisfaction (and profit!) in doing a few things really well. Thankfully, we’d worked this out and achieved steady profitability by the time Amazon arrived to disrupt the print-on-demand merchandising space. Profitability and a well-structured business can help you ride out the arrival of disruptors.
We also discovered that leaving start-up life can be hard for people working in the business. There will be those who don’t want to move on from the cool, start-up world and take the leap towards a full-fledged business. But disgruntlement (and managing it) is part of growing-up. It’s possible to become a fully-fledged business without losing the benefits of start-up life.
Communication with your team is key here. What are the parts of start-up life they like? What can you afford to take with you? At Spreadshirt we recruited a Feel Good Manager to keep the good vibes flowing. She is responsible for the onboarding process for each new Spreadster, improving workplace culture, being a to-go-to-person for any problems, AND all the fun stuff in the office! Spreadshirt always had a big summer party where family and friends, came together, but our Feel Good Manager added a “Spreadster exclusive” event, so the whole team can reconnect with each other and our start-up roots.
Getting to grown-up often means expanding the management team; tempering the enthusiasm of the founder with a wise old CEO, who’s seen it all before. Solid leadership can bring up the organisation from the start-up childhood, through the awkward years of business puberty to adulthood and a steadily growing company. A company that is working on margin, consistent profit, generating a good set of assets and a solid balance sheet, is also a company that can afford to retain the benefits of start-up life and keep the team happy.
Becoming a grown-up can be as challenging as starting the business in the first place, but acknowledging the awkward growth years can be the first step towards navigating them successfully.
By Philip Rooke
CEO
Spreadshirt
Find him on Linked In