Startup Lessons Decoded: Real Stories and Insights
The startup journey is a bumpy one.
After guiding multiple mergers and acquisitions, Iโve gained some practical insights that lead to saved time and costsโand growing a business.
This series of four posts looks at startup journeys and key learnings from working with successful founders.
Unlocking Growth: Team Accountability and Collaboration
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The founder of an international company oversaw impressive growth, with annual revenue soaring from $5M to $30M in just three years.
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However, he recognized a looming threat as customers faced pressure to adopt cheaper solutions. Revenue growth already started to plateau.
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Eager to explore new offerings and stay ahead of this trend, the founder faced a dilemma: he was constantly pulled into day-to-day decisions, leaving little time for strategic planning.
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Making time for strategy is prioritizing
your business over busy-ness
โFocus on being productive instead of busy."
โ Tim Ferriss
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The team directors operated in a hub-and-spoke model, with communication flowing through the founder. While they could run their teams, the directors felt limited in working across departments and making budget choices.
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Weekly leadership team meetings focused on tactical needsโsuch as upcoming pitchesโrather than strategy. Strategic planning was only done annually and relied more on assumptions than metrics. The directors craved financial insight and long-term goals.
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The founder was equally frustrated by team leads avoiding big decisions. He wanted to review thorough recommendations, not solve many problems.
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After several meetings, we decided to create a KPI Dashboard. It would display key metrics for each team and be easily sharable.
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The directors proposed their KPIs and desired metrics to the leadership team, and after a chance for questions, the founder approved the metrics.
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The KPI Dashboard enhanced awareness, collaboration, and accountability. With its holistic view, it sparked discussions on new strategies, initiative ownership, potential risks, and growth opportunities. The directors formed task forces to improve customer management, create referral incentives, and define business interruption plans.
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Directors now could quickly view financial metrics causing spending adjustments, an insight that previously required multiple conversations.
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The final step was hiring a revenue operations manager to verify accurate data reporting and to collect and report new information.
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Last year, the company successfully merged with a larger industry player.
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The founder could focus strategically on product development and strengthening the value proposition.
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By adopting shared metrics, the founder could rely on better-informed directors to handle more responsibilities, allowing the company to scale and grow effectively.
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This post was written by me with AI editing. Photo by x ):
Our latest newsletterย covers What is the Unsung Hero of Startup Success? and The Make-or-Break Move for Startups: Early Customer Validation from Jamal Hermitt.
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