From 5 to 50 – Top Tips
The following article has been written by former CEO of Cohort Studios, Lol Scragg. Lol has worked on many large titles during his time in the video games industry in the role of Producer, Senior Producer, Development Manager, Development Director. Lol has most recently set up a consultancy called Gamify and he’s currently working with Waracle on an innovative new social gaming product. This guy really knows his stuff.
Growth is the killer of many small companies, not due to the end product, but the lack of preparation and understanding of the additional requirements. Growth tends to be seen as very positive, and under most business situations it is, however SME’s need to be aware that they need to take more time over preparation of rapid growth than they ever did over setting their business up in the first instance!
Five guys working in a small office with low overheads is fun and the gang-hut mentality can take over. Unfortunately however, this method of working tends not to scale to a 50 strong team very successfully.
So, how to do it? There is one part of me that says the answer is simple: don’t do it unless you have to and the potential rewards far outweigh the large risks, however given that answer is not really an option, here are five tips on scaling successfully:
1. Plan, plan and plan some more!
Whilst it sounds pretty obvious to ensure you plan your growth effectively, it is one area that some SME’s think they can get away with, instead relying on what they call ‘organic’ growth (which is incorrect by the way!). You need to completely understand the reasons why you want to grow and the costs and implications involved. Do your cashflow projections make the growth worthwhile and indeed, do you have enough cash to grow?
Are all the directors onboard with the growth plan and if not, how do you solve this potentially toxic situation? What about your current staff, are they onboard with the growth plans? Have you thought about the operational implications of growth such as staffing, triggering of new regulatory requirements, office space and equipment, capital costs etc.?
2. Before you grow everything, grow your management team
If you are some form of superhuman management hero, you can stop reading this tip now, but if you are a normal human being without an ego one of the best ways to guarantee scaling success is to grow your management team first. You may well be in charge, but you cannot do it all yourself (unless you are the aforesaid superhuman manager and if you are I would argue that you should take a long hard look at yourself and try and burst that ego a wee bit!). Getting a strong management team in place to assist before you commence your growth plan will ease a huge amount of stress and aggravation as you work through your plan.
3. HR and Finance are priorities
Maybe a strange one for an SME to understand, but I would argue that two of the most important members of your management team will be those who manage HR and Finance. Of course, if you have a good accountant you don’t need a finance person within your organization but getting both of these areas covered is key. As you scale up, your HR person can ensure you stay within the law as you trigger more regulatory requirements and bring more process to your organization.
They will know when you trigger a legal requirement to offer things such as stakeholder pensions; they will also know what processes you really should have in place! They can create your processes for you to ensure you don’t leave yourself open to trouble, and also to help get the best people on board.
4. Strong hires > Bums on seats. Team > Individuals
When pushing your growth plan into action, it can sometimes seem that getting new bums on new seats is the most important thing, but be aware that this is a policy destined to bring along failure. Which brings us to the building of a team: one major downfall of growing businesses is hiring a collection of individuals rather than a team.
Even if a Nigerian prince really gives you $10m to spend on your team, spending it on the most talented superstars is going to bring that failure on extremely fast whilst driving you crazy as you try and herd cats. A team is not a collection of the best and most talented individuals but a collection of people whose skills and talents complement each other. Have a look at Belbin and Maslow for more info!
5. Get as much advice as possible, but ignore most of it
Advice is invaluable and you should try and get as much as you can, but given you are about to scale up your organization, there is a strong chance you are an intelligent individual anyway so listen to advice provided and use it to make your own judgements! If you have no experience of a 50+ strong team, find someone who does and see if they will help you out.
If you can’t find a free mentor then it can be worth (with the right person) bringing in a consultant or Non-Exec Director to help you out. Use someone who has successfully scaled an operation to bounce ideas off and warn you of any pitfalls your plan may have – any costs incurred now will far outweigh the cost of fixing mistakes later down the line!
Having never been too keen on following rules all that much, here are a few more tips over and above the 5 I was allowed!
- Don’t get personal with your personnel – Yes, it is an almighty cliche but an invaluable piece of advice. Some of your employee’s may be your pals, but you do need to be aware that at some point in the future you may need to discipline them or tell them that their jobs are going. It’s not easy to do but if you show any favoritism, the effect on your other employee’s can be catastrophic!
- Get rid of the dicks – We all know people like this and it needs no other explanation!
- Keep staff informed – Be honest and truthful with your staff as if they feel they are being trusted with information, they will support you that wee bit more. Be aware though that no matter how open you are, there will always be grumbles that they ‘don’t get told anything’
- Fail cheaply – If you are going from 5 to 50 people, your overheads will increase probably 15-fold! Ensure that any internal projects or R&D that you do are setup so that you can determine success or failure extremely quickly. With a team of 50, each extra week you spend on something can cost £40k+ so ensure that if you are going to fail with a project, fail as soon as possible!
- Don’t forget the support/ancillary requirements – It’s easy enough to run to the shop for milk and loo-roll when there are only 5 of you, but you need a lot more milk and loo-roll when there are 50 of you! Things that you do now as a matter of course may not be as easy to do when your organization is 10 times larger – and if you are being honest to yourself, should you really be the one who runs out to get the milk every day?
