Strategies for Sustainable Growth

Transition from working "in" your business to working "on" it for sustainable growth. Learn how restructuring leadership, focusing on strategic tasks, and prioritizing value-driven activities can transform your startup into a scalable enterprise, while improving decision-making efficiency and long-term success.

Over the years, we've operated our business under a variety of structures. Initially, Tristan and I began our entrepreneurial journey with a core team of five partners. This structure had its benefits: strong team values, a willingness to learn and adapt, and plenty of hands for working on client projects. Since we were all new to the video industry, it was helpful for learning the process and technicals together.

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However, we soon realized the limitations of this path. Decision-making was slow. Costs were high, and maintaining a unified vision and culture was challenging. This led us to a pivotal decision. Restructuring to a two founder system. This shift allowed us to streamline our decision-making process and foster a culture where each team member carried more responsibility. In rebranding to story, we adopted a mindset focused on strategic growth.

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We understood that as a service business, the key roles of the equity holders should be business development and crafting scalable processes. Execution, such as editing for example, was delegated to a mix of freelancers and internal hires. This approach enabled us to concentrate on expanding our business while maintaining operational efficiency. Our shift to a two-founder system allowed for a more concentrated focus on key business areas, but we both focused deeply on business development and marketing.

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Tristan concentrated on process optimization and product development, while I focused on strategy and management. This decision was influenced by organizational ambidexterity, a concept that involves balancing the utilization of existing assets with the exploration of new opportunities for growth and innovation. This structural shift had immediate and long term impacts on our startup's trajectory. Decision-making became more efficient, reducing the time from ideation to execution.

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Our meetings became more strategic, focusing on long-term goals rather than getting bogged down in day-to-day operational details. This shift in focus was critical in our transition from a startup to a scalable business. The evolution of our company structure underscores a fundamental lesson for startups: the need to remain adaptable and responsive to the changing dynamics of business environments.

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Be thoughtful about the makeup of your leadership team and how you structure your team to execute on customer needs, from a long-term standpoint. As we grew, our ability to pivot and restructure played a crucial role in sustaining and accelerating our growth strategy.

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A crucial lesson in our growth journey involved understanding the difference between working in the business, such as day-to-day tasks and execution, and working on the business’ strategic planning and growth, for example. It's essential to structure your activities to understand their value. Efficiency and effectiveness are both key to value-oriented activities and should not be mutually exclusive.

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Over time, through experience, we learned to prioritize tasks that drove value and contributed to growth. Prioritizing tasks can be a challenge that is often compounded by the lack of historical data in any business. This led us to treat data with significant importance, using it to inform as many of our decisions as possible. We also realized the importance of clearly defining roles and responsibilities within our team.

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Each member of your team should have a laser focus on the area they are responsible for executing within. Titles mean very little in a small business environment outside of delineating a general area of focus. They're cheap. It's the outcomes and impacts that truly matter. Overlapping responsibilities can exist to a degree, but in a smaller team, tap into the strengths of each individual member of your team as much as you can.

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This understanding helped us effectively divide and conquer tasks, ensuring that each team member was contributing to our overarching goals. Understanding the difference between working on the business versus in the business has been a crucial aspect of our growth strategy. This concept, derived from Michael Gerber's E-Myth, highlights the importance of transitioning from a doer working in, to a thinker and planner working on. Working in the business involves day to day operational tasks, the kind that keep the business running but doesn't necessarily contribute to its growth.

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This includes everything from administrative tasks to hands-on project work. While these tasks are essential, they can often consume the majority of an entrepreneur's time, leaving little room for strategic planning and growth. Conversely, working on the business means focusing on activities that drive strategic growth, innovation, and long-term success. This involves strategic planning, market analysis, business development, product development, process optimization, and exploring new opportunities.

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It's all about stepping back from the daily grind and looking at the bigger picture. Where is the business heading and what does it need to get there? Implementing this shift required us to critically analyze our daily activities, categorizing them into, in, or on tasks. We then began to delegate and automate many of the tasks, freeing up our time for on tasks that required our strategic input.

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This process, influenced by time management theories of Peter Drucker, enabled us to focus on tasks that offered the highest return on our time investment. The strategic time management led to significant changes in how we approached our business. We moved away from being caught up in day-to-day tasks, and began to focus more on building relationships with key partners, exploring new markets, and developing scalable business processes.

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This shift was instrumental in transforming our startup into a thriving, scalable business. The lesson here for entrepreneurs is clear: while working in the business is necessary, especially in the early stages, transitioning to working on the business is critical for sustainable growth and success. This balance is key to not just surviving, but thriving in the competitive world of business.