You’ve Achieved Product-Market Fit… Now What?

Originally published January 30, 2021

You’re an early-stage startup founder, and after lots of slogging and multiple near-deaths, you’ve achieved the improbable: you’ve survived long enough to not only achieve product-market fit, but also to begin scaling and maybe even hit an inflection point. You and your team have, through force of will and many sleepless nights, managed to grow to 10, then 20, then 30 employees. Maybe you think the hardest part of your journey is behind you. It’s not. The journey remains difficult, but the road changes completely. It’s no longer about building something from scratch and convincing customers to use it. Now it’s about getting a group of 30, 50, or 100 people to all work together in sync — especially when they may not be in the same city, or even the same country. Now it’s about maintaining your rate of growth once all the early adopters have already jumped on board and you have to convince the mainstream. Each company’s journey is different, and there are no shortcuts, but the following points should provide a solid roadmap for this next phase.

Communicate to support growth

Over-communicate. Because all-hands and @channel are no longer effective, and you often have remote teams, keeping everyone on the same page is critical. Use different channels. Maintain a consistent message. Give frequent updates.
Communicate the vision clearly and often so the team remains vested and focused.
Focus on one big milestone at a time. Minimize confusion, keep everyone on the same narrow path.

Build culture & teams to support growth

Define your culture and your core values. Ensure everyone knows them and uses them in hiring and performance reviews. You could even use them to structure agendas for weekly team meetings.
Ensure your leadership team is senior enough to handle the challenges of scaling. Maybe you moved inexperienced people into leadership positions when you were 15 people strong. As you push past 50 and onward to 150, having people around the table who’ve been there before and can advise on what’s coming becomes critical.
Build sub-teams to ensure all levels of the organization are pushing in the same direction. Don’t expect managers to manage more than 5–7 people if you want them to manage effectively.
Be vigilant to spot team members who aren’t capable of scaling with the company, and replace them as soon as possible.
Recognize and minimize silos as you build sub-teams. Ensure there are ample opportunities for teams to come together and communicate.
Hire people that fit your culture. Interview for it. Evaluate candidates against your core values. Hiring is hard, but settling can be deadly.

Plan to support growth

Understand the infrastructure (processes, procedures, systems) you need to effectively scale.
Plan your systems strategy so departments don’t end up with siloed systems that don’t integrate or communicate.
Ensure your systems strategy complements your need for open, frequent, consistent communication.
Recognize the critical importance of automation. Spreadsheets stop being sufficient quickly as you scale. Invest in BI tools, sales tools, marketing tools, back-office tools — and make sure they all talk to each other. Automate and integrate everywhere.
Frequently assess existing processes to ensure they’re scaling appropriately and continuing to add value. If not, change them or get rid of them.

Build sales teams to support growth (primarily for B2B companies)

Put formal processes, procedures, and systems in place so BDRs/SDRs and AEs can be effective with minimal direct involvement from sales managers, except on the largest deals.
Standardize pricing and formalize the approval process for variations.
Standardize your product offering so consistency in the sales process can be built and executed across the organization — speeding up the sales cycle and avoiding the problem of customers comparing notes and finding out others got better deals.

Note: the benefits of standardization apply just as effectively to your other departments.

Talk through your scaling plan