Scaling up a business will be a challenging, but exciting time for any business owner. Whether you’re ready to widen your client base, look for bigger offices, expand your product/service offering or add an ecommerce website, you need to take the right steps to prepare your business for a significant rise in activity, and we’re here to help!
Scaling up a business will be a challenging, but exciting time for any business owner. Whether you’re ready to widen your client base, look for bigger offices, expand your product/service offering or add an ecommerce website, you need to take the right steps to prepare your business for a significant rise in activity, and we’re here to help!
Join our 'The Formula To Scale Your Business' event taking place in Tramshed Tech on 28th April 6pm-8pm to hear from founders who have scaled successfully.
What Is The Difference Between A Start Up And Scale Up?
To put it simply, a start up refers to a company in the first stages of operations, whereas a scale up is a business that’s in the process of expanding.
While a startup is in the early stages of determining product-market fit, experimenting with customer segmentation and working toward a positive contribution margin, a scale up has already validated its product within the marketplace and has proven that the unit economics are sustainable. Learn more about the differences between a start up and scale up.
The reality is that scaling up your business will require a different skill set to the one you employed when getting it off the ground in the first place - you need to manage both growth and risk.
How To Scale Up A Business
Top tips for scaling up a business include, but are not limited to:
1. Join A Supportive Coworking Network
The first tip to scaling up a business is to join a supportive coworking network. Becoming part of a supportive community like Tramshed Tech is one of the best things you can do to help scale your business.
Tramshed Tech is a collaborative community, where startups scale up, home to 50+ companies ranging from pre-revenue start-ups to scaling businesses with 600+ registered members from the digital, creative and tech communities.
Over the past five years, we have identified key stages where startups need an added layer of support in taking their business to the next level. We have strategic partners across the UK and Europe to include Google for Startups, Geovation in London and Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (SQY) in Paris. These partnerships enable Tramshed Tech members to access specialist accelerator programmes to enable business growth.
Our member testimonials speak for themselves…
"Tramshed Tech is such a great home for us to attract forward thinking talent and grow our amazing team. The entrepreneurial energy running throughout is the perfect environment for growing organisations." — PureCyber (previously Wolfberry)
"I’ve grown my business from 1 to 5 people at Tramshed Tech and their team find a way to support me and my team every single day. I've never experienced that anywhere else. Put simply I owe a large part of our success to Tramshed Tech." — Lumen SEO
2. Understand Your Niche
In order to scale up, you must have a deep understanding of your niche and your unique competitive advantage over your competitors.
To be successful, you need to concentrate on dominating in your niche.
3. Get Your Strategy Right
Having a strong strategy is crucial for scaling up for a number of reasons.
Put concisely, getting your strategy right helps to generate sustainable top-line revenue growth, creates raving fans of your product/service, and gets your whole team on the same page.
4. Create A Great Team And Company Culture
It goes without saying that scaling up a business is a team effort. This is why it's crucial that you choose the right people to join you on this journey of growth.
Remember that every person is valuable, so you should spend some time developing a strategy to attract and keep the best people for your company.
As they always say, team work makes the dream work!
Learn more about attracting talent to your business here.
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5. Invest In Technology
Technology makes it easier and less expensive to scale a business. You can gain huge economies of scale and more throughput, with less labor, if you invest wisely in technology.
Look at CRM, marketing automation, sales management, inventory, manufacturing, accounting, HR, shipping and other technology systems.
Evaluate not only software, but also networks and hardware such as servers, computers, printers and telephone equipment.
6. Know When To Say ‘No’
As mentioned above, in order to scale up, you need to concentrate on winning in your niche. This means that at some point you'll need to reject everything that isn’t moving you towards your goal.
In part, this will depend on the numbers. Is a new business opportunity worth pursuing given the margins available on it? Would your resources be more profitably employed on other ventures?
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Find out more about how Tramshed Tech can support you with your business growth, including skills training and specialist partnership programmes here. Our new ‘roaming membership’ gives you the choice to work across a number of locations, including Cardiff, Newport, Vale and Swansea.
