Building a scalable company

After reading an article in which the differences between growing a company and scaling a company were discussed, Svea wants to hear Mattias' opinion about this topic.
Mattias describes growing a company as a process where the revenue and a variety of different metrics (e.g. the number of employees) increases over time. Scaling a company is very similar, but the company is growing without increasing costs. This can be achieved by running a company as efficiently as possible.

Challenges of scaling a business

Mattias talks about how over time iGoMoon has established a market-fit for their services and built a strong relationship with their partner HubSpot. Like this, they have survived the first "valley of death", which usually occurs when a company grows over a number of 10 employees and a revenue of 1 million Euro. Obviously, there are many other challenges to overcome as a business that is scaling up. Some of the most common ones are:

1. Cash
2. Processes
3. Culture

Being asked which things he did when deciding to consciously scale up his company, Mattias mentions multiple points:

1. Leadership

One of his main focuses is to always improve himself as a leader but also teach other leaders within his organization to become better at what they are doing. Like this, Mattias can more easily delegate tasks and make iGoMoon as a business more predictable.

2. Infrastructure

Over the last years, he has been working on creating a more scalable infrastructure after realizing that there was a lack of both physical and organizational systems. These systems and a well-functioning infrastructure are key to work more efficiently.

3. Communication

The more a company grows, the more complex it becomes. This also affects internal communication, which is a very important aspect to work on in order to successfully scale a business.

4. Marketing

Mattias explains that he can still see that iGoMoon has a lot of work to do regarding marketing. He believes that a big reason why people fail scaling their companies is due to insufficient marketing. Good marketing can have an immense impact on not only attracting new customers but also new talents and developing other key relationships.

Initiating ideas

Furthermore, Mattias also talks about how he has learned a lot about scaling a company with the help of Verne Harnish's book "Scaling Up". Because of that, he decided to reach out to a certified consultant to help iGoMoon scale up a while ago. He explains that it can be a good idea to have someone coming from outside to support you when you as a CEO want to initiate new ideas for the leaders. In addition, as soon as another person from outside the organization is the one facilitating, you get the chance to also participate and be creative on the same level as the rest of the leaders.

Mattias ends the episode by talking about iGoMoon's current biggest challenge in the scale-up process: attracting, recruiting, and keeping the right talents. The reason why iGoMoon is struggling with this at the moment is simply due to a lack of time on Mattias' side. HR work is a full-time job and since Mattias has a lot on his plate already, he decided to get some help from another consulting company that will take over some of the talent acquisition work.

💡 EPISODE TAKE AWAY
Be patient and continue growing in the process.

Are you growing or scaling your business? Let us know if you want to hear more about Mattias' scaling journey.