Welcome to the third and final installment of the blog Startup Companies: One CEO or Several?
Today, I finish with what it takes to scale past the $50 million plateau.
The Scaler – Scaling Past Plateau ($50M-350M)
So the company is now growing. You have 150-250 employees including your offshore development center(s). Your revenue is in the range of $25-50 million. How are you going to move your company past this plateau? If it hasn’t already happened, this might be the timeframe for establishing additional revenue streams, which may come from selling into additional industries, creating new product offerings or expanding the company’s geographic presences.
This is another obvious stage to assess the management team. If the CEO is still a founder, this doesn’t mean he/she needs to leave, but they will need to make sure other members of the management team have scaled through this critical timeframe. One challenge in this timeframe isn’t only the growth, but how it happens. If your revenue is at $50 million, but comes from only 10 customers, you may need to think about your total potential market and the likelihood of sustained growth.
This is also the timeframe when many successful CEOs increase their visibility and are positioned as thought leaders. What is your presentation style? Being a thought leader doesn’t mean you need to become king of the conference stage, but you do need to be able to talk about more than your company’s solutions and to perfect your own personal presentation style. All this AND be able to trust the people you hired to run your business.
What Does This All Mean?
As I look through these descriptions, one thing is clear. For each progressive stage of a startups lifecycle, the founders need to let go a little more. First, you need to hire the best professionals you can find. Second, you need to believe you have hired the best professionals you can find. Third, you need to trust them to do what you hired them to do. Finally, you need to be wise enough to know when you can’t do this and hand the reins over to someone who can.
Fork In The Road 