While every entrepreneur needs to think about product, market, customer acquisition and – in many cases – financing, it’s the talent and support from the ecosystem that are truly essential to scaling a tech company.
1. Think about your management team early and often. Most entrepreneurs realize the importance of building a product or platform to scale from day one. But scaling a team is often a more challenging proposition. The smart, scrappy team that can get a company off the ground doesn’t necessarily have the relevant expertise to get that company to IPO.
Adding an executive layer to a company can be difficult, especially for those entrepreneurs who are doing it for the first time. These founders may not know what an experienced executive in certain functional areas looks like in action, so don’t necessarily know when to hire for the role, what to look for, and how much positive change the role can effect.
Entrepreneurs often resist this move because they don’t want to bring someone in above the employees who were there from the start, and stuck around through the tough times. There’s also a tendency to just not want to ‘disrupt’ a company as it is growing.
It’s important to recognize when ‘what got you here won’t get you there’ and make the tough executive hiring calls when they are needed. Change can be challenging, but it’s necessary to continue to efficiently scale your company. Adding the right skill set to your management team will help to establish the processes, high quality team building and best practices needed to avoid the common land mines a company will face as it grows. And if you’re feeling stuck about what level to hire for, a good way to think about it is to hire for the skill set that you need to grow your company over the next few years.
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