Years ago, when I was 24 years old and just starting my entrepreneurial journey, I had an interesting conversation with an experienced entrepreneur. I introduced him to the company I was building, and he listened attentively. Then, he asked a single question: how will you scale?
I was in survival mode
At that time, I was a complete beginner, and I hadn’t given scaling much thought. My only concern was to make enough money for my own survival. I didn’t want to go back to employment; I didn’t want to become an employee again. I was in survival mode.
Today, as I recall that conversation, it’s crystal clear to me that his question was incredibly important. It’s a question that tells you about your company’s potential. Will the company remain a local provider, grow to a national level, or even become an international company?
I made this mistake several times. For instance, years ago, when I wanted to start a toy company. Although our project team approached it quite professionally with two engineers handling the development of technical toys and a graphic designer taking care of the branding, my mistake was not thinking enough about scaling.
If I had, I would have realized long before the project’s failure and the loss of tens of thousands of euros that the toys, as we envisioned them, couldn’t be mass-produced. The production process was too manual, which, especially in Slovenia, is relatively expensive and increases the final product’s cost. Additionally, I didn’t consider that marketing a new product would be very costly. I relied too much on word-of-mouth sales, which isn’t realistic when expanding to a broader market. Even when I wanted to place the toys on the shelves of larger retailers, they demanded a 30-50% share. As you can see, my mistake was not thinking enough about scaling. If I had thought about it from the beginning, it would have been clear to me that the product, in its envisioned form, wouldn’t be financially successful.
What concrete advice can I offer?
So, what concrete advice can I offer to a young entrepreneur? Even in the early stages, when you’re setting up your company, it’s worth thinking about how you can replicate your business in new markets. Consider how you will expand your team and how the organization will grow.
If you have scaling in mind, you’ll tackle problems differently from the start, laying the foundations for growth.
For example, if you know your company will become international, it’s worth writing internal documents in English from the very beginning (or translate them using ChatGPT) 🙂 Why not have your marketing strategy written in English, making it accessible to all future team members? Perhaps you’ll even find that filming all advertisements in English and then adapting them to local languages for wider markets is a viable strategy.
In addition to language, I recommend keeping a work journal from the beginning.
In addition to language, I recommend keeping a work journal from the beginning. You might find this unusual, as you might wonder why you would record everything you do when you’re your own boss. However, it’s essential. Through this record, you’ll have a much easier time understanding your role in the company, what you can delegate, and what you’ll need to teach others who take on some of your responsibilities. As your company grows, you’ll inevitably move further away from the product or service itself and assume a more organizational and leadership role. An additional benefit of keeping this record is that it will give you better self-control – you’ll see what you do effectively and what needs improvement.
Start building systems when your company is still small.
Besides language and your personal work journal, there’s one more thing I recommend: start building systems. This means that for every task you undertake, think about and document it from a system-building perspective. For instance, consider procurement. Suppose you’re ordering a lot of equipment from Alibaba. When your company is small and there are only a few of you, it may not be essential to keep a record of all the equipment you’ve ordered because you can remember it all and access it on your Alibaba profile. However, as your company begins to grow, and new people come on board, you’ll need a clear list of all the equipment ordered, returns, equipment in transit, and so on. I’m not suggesting you use procurement software as large companies do from the beginning. Instead, I’m recommending that you keep some basic records of what’s happening in your company. By doing this and making these records accessible to your team through spreadsheets and documents on Google Drive, you’ll actually be laying the groundwork for scaling your business. Onboardnig of new employees will be so much easier!
In conclusion, even at the beginning, when you’re still in survival mode, it’s worth starting to think about things from a scaling perspective. I promise you that if you view problems through these lenses, you’ll make better and more effective decisions.
