I'm not a banker. I am a technologist. A technologist who, for some weird reason, always seems to end up with the task of solving problems.
Often these have been massive problems, caused by massive growth. Sometimes growth pains can be predicted, often they aren't. In new business models, there will be new pain points.
But, usually they are the old ones coming round again
I've repeatably built businesses that operate in the millions. Millions of download, millions of transactions, millions of customers. Selling direct to consumers, there are many things I've learnt. There's ' Michael's Waterfall' , as part of the purchase process. There's ways of increasing your revenues while at the same time making the customer happier. There's upsell, and then there's Vistaprint upsell.
When I started using technology, systems broke due to scaling issues. My first company grew from zero to 100.000 paying customers, invoiced every month by the best microvax money could buy, but with less computing power than a mobile phone of today. We managed to get the bills out every month, and most of the time they were correct. I built a 30 person customer support system , with task management, and something that today you might call CRM. Usually this worked. That was 1987.
Tele2 grew from 2 million to 27 million subscribers in four years. This was tricky. Lot's of issues here. We were pushing the edges of technology - needing to build systems that could offload other systems, just to keep things working. But, it was the exception that technical and operational issues prevented growth.
Skype was designed from the beginning with scale in mind. One reason for it's success was that we could simply 'sell-sell-sell'. The production guy (that was me as well) had no reason to worry. For sure long days and nights, and of course a panic here and there - but, nothing that prevented the business growing.
But scaling isn't just technology. Scaling is about the organisation. As advisor to Tommy at Zyb, perhaps I contributed to building a great product and a great exit. Ask him.
In 2008, systems don't break due to scale, they break due to bad design and bad planning. 'Out of capacity' is not even an excuse - at least if it prevents the business growing.
I've moved from COO / CTO roles , and now over to Venture Capital , as a Partner in Mangrove Capital Partners.
Through this, I'm now seeing tens of companies go through growth and growth pains. The skill set that all growth companies need is experience from folk who've done it before. I like watching successful companies grow, and I hate watching them loose their chance because they simply haven't planned.
My companies won't fail due to this.
One reason to approach Mangrove with your project.
mail me at : Making-it-scale@overdrev.com
