In the early days of a startup, you’re forced to do just about everything yourself, particularly if you’re bootstrapping. From wireframes to coding to marketing and customer support, when you’re just starting out, it all falls to you, the founder(s).
Hopefully, your startup will eventually gain traction and start to grow. If it does, you’ll run into new challenges that nearly every young startup faces: growing pains.
Customer support requests keep rolling in; you’re fielding PR opportunities; and you’ve got a growing list of product improvements and bug fixes. If you’re still juggling these responsibilities without clear systems and processes in place, your startup’s early traction can easily reach a screeching halt.
These five systemizing steps can help your startup scale and grow efficiently.
1. Start With the Low-Hanging Fruit.
Right off the bat, identify a few tasks that have become routine and increasingly common in your workflow.
For example, in the case of a SaaS (software as a service) businesses, it might involve processing customer cancellations. Commonly, in the early days, cancellations are handled manually, upon customer request.
Now might be a good time for your developer program to implement an automated cancellation system. Or document the cancellation process and delegate it to a lower-level employee or virtual assistant (more on this later).
2. Identify the Bottlenecks.
Bottlenecks are those larger tasks or processes that always seem to take longer than they should. They get in the way and cause delays and roadblocks in every area of your business.
Identify these bottlenecks early and think about how to deal with them. Bottleneck tasks generally fall into one of two categories:
Things you (the founder) are good at and enjoy doing yourself. For example, if you’re a developer who built his own app and enjoys writing code, find a way to spend more time coding and less time bogged down with other tasks.
Things you're mediocre at and don’t particularly enjoy, but have been doing yourself out of necessity. For example, if you’re a developer but couldn’t afford a designer, you probably spend too much time staring at a blank canvas, unsure how to create something your users will enjoy.
It’s time to figure out how you can offload the responsibilities and focus on what you’re good at.
3. Document Your Procedures.
By now, you see where this is going: You will soon need to hire your first employee(s). But before you do, you’d better be prepared.
Document your procedures so your new employees can get up to speed and hit the ground running on their first days. Well-documented procedures for all of those repetitive tasks in your business will make it 100 times easier for new employees to begin their jobs.
Don’t play catch-up after you’ve already made the hire. Get a head start on documenting those step-by-step operations sooner rather than later — even months before you’re ready to hire employee No. 1. This way, you can give your procedures the care and attention they deserve while you have the time, not when you’re scrambling to keep up with the growth of your business.
Be sure to include plenty of detail and visuals in your procedures. Screenshots, photos and videos will help clarify and reduce mistakes.
4. Hire an Employee or Virtual Assistant.
You’ve identified the low-hanging fruit, streamlined the larger bottlenecks and documented your step-by-step procedures. Now it’s time to finally get the help you need, so your growth can accelerate.
For a small, bootstrapped startup, you might need the help before you can actually afford to pay a full-time salary. In these situations, start by hiring contractors on a periodic basis to come in and help you complete specific projects. Designers and developers would be perfect candidates early on.
Or stay efficient by hiring a virtual assistant. A great VA can help handle many of those routine tasks, so you can focus your efforts on the bigger picture.
5. Never Stop Improving and Optimizing Your Systems.
Now that you’ve got your systems and people in place, your business should be humming like a machine. But your work isn’t done yet. Things change rapidly, especially in web and technology startups. Make sure documented procedures stay up-to-date as the business changes.
It’s up to you and your employees to constantly refine, update and improve your step-by-step procedures. Make it part of your employees' job descriptions to continuously suggest process changes and improvements, since they’re the ones “on the ground” executing tasks on a daily basis.
You’ll thank yourself later when employee turnover happens. By keeping your systems and procedures updated, you won't experience the setbacks that often come when training new employees. New hires can simply pick up where old ones left off, because everything is documented and updated.
by Brian Casel
