These Three Roadblocks Are What’s Stopping You

We’ve helped 100+ founders to upgrade their products lines into profitable high-growth startups without burning out and we do so by eliminating three roadblocks that I outline below…

These three roadblocks are what’s stopping you from going from growth mode to scaling

Growth = consistent increases, guaranteed burnout

Scale = exponential increases, reduced burnout

Roadblocks:

1. you can’t consistently deliver because your delivery structure is not locked in

2. you can’t generate profits because your financial model is fundamentally broken

3. you can’t easily scale because your organization is too complex

Consistent Delivery

Let’s talk about the secret no one really talks about. All software companies are actually just service providers with products that they leverage. Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM all have consulting arms that help implement their software.

In order for you to scale, you must abstract your product delivery process until it is consistently performing at a level and success rate that can scale.

The key to consistent delivery is threefold:

Having a fully defined onboarding, implementation, and ongoing projects process

Charging for different levels of support to unlock larger margins. Customer support/success is where your freedom lies.

Having a team that is obsessed with customer results, not process.

Without these three you become a software development shop, or worse, a body shop with not just one boss, but multiple bosses for each customer that you sign. Correct me if I’m wrong, but having a lack of freedom is not why you started your own company.

Generating Profits

A broken company is a broken company. There is no critical moment where economies of scale come into play that allow you to be profitable. Profitability is a decision that must be made daily, and drawing a line in the sand for expenses is the only way to get there. There is a reason the FAANG companies are where they are… they optimized for free cash flow from the beginning. For those of you screaming Amazon! in your heads, you can still have positive free cash flow while having minuscule to negative profits.

If you do not fix your mental model of your company right now, you will continue to burn cash at a larger and larger rate.

Scaling Easily

Scaling can be fun :).

I’ve seen million-dollar months in companies with less than 15 people. Instagram sold for $1 billion with only 13 employees. You don’t need massive teams and complex meetings. You just need to combine 2 things:

1. Asymmetric returns

2. Simplicity through self-regulation

Asymmetric returns

The mark of a genius is their ability to generate massive returns with minimal efforts.

You don’t have to have a genius IQ to have the abilities of a genius. You need to focus on the genius activities and only the genius activities unless you're facing a company-killing crisis. At this point your systems are adequate enough to keep your company afloat, so start manufacturing inflection points. This is what will separate you from the rest.

Simplicity

The best can get more done with a simple system than a complex one. If you understand this then you’re one of the best. If you don’t then it's time to rethink your principles.

1 hire on the growth side can get you to 8 figures

If you’re going mass market this is probably going to be a media buyer

If you’re going niche market this is probably going to be a VP of Sales or Growth

1 hire on the product side can ensure that you deliver 8 figures

If you’re building something repeatable this is probably going to be a VP of product

If you’re building something highly technical this is probably going to be a VP of engineering

Identify what KPIs you need to hit, and find the people that have already done it

If they don’t want to join you then either your mission isn't clear or you need to level up yourself.

If you do these things well you will experience exponential growth. Scale.

If you don’t then you will either experience regular growth.

I’m not sure which market you’re in but you’re probably going to be destroyed by someone that is scaling.

If you want to learn more, I’ve created a free training that will give you more information about how we help founders do the same. If you like it you can also book a call with me where we can identify why and how you can start focusing on scale and not burning yourself out on growth.

Click here to get access to the video: How To Grow, In Any Environment

It will cover:

why burnout happens

which obstacles you’ll face along the way

3 stages of a high growth startup and which one you’re in right now

If you’ve already seen the video, go ahead and click on the book now button to hop on a call with me or my team and we’ll see how to get you to scale in the fastest way possible.

Founders in our program include serial entrepreneurs with multiple exits, YC founders, Thiel Fellows, and 500 startups founders.

To your growth!