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On scaling companies RANDOM LEARNINGS
Jan Miczaika
2003-2009 MD / Product & Tech
0 to 80 people
2010-2017 COO / Publishing 40 to 250 people
2017++ Partner / $$$
<20 people
Basics of scaling
Always adapt
Test ideas you steal
Stop doing things
…build your own „management system“
Stages of a companies‘ scale
< 10 people I. Family
< 40 people II. A few teams
< 100 people III. Departments
100+ people IV. Wide unknowns
Osmosis breaks Contributors à Leads
Feedback Some „CEO work“
The happy times
Culture
Leads à Heads Information flow
Mostly „CEO work“ Major org changes
Dunbar‘s number Company mood Navigation
Org splitting
Internal moves
Multi-location
Define values
Feedback and development tools
Standardized Onboarding (Phase I) - Week 1: Tasks & Obstacles. - Week 2: Check-in (beer?). - Week 6: First review. - Week 16: ↑ or à.
On-going Feedback (P.II) - Every 6 months. - “Big” and “Small”. - Small: manager. Big: 5-8 peers. - Employee: development goals. - Compensation sucks.
Calibration Meetings (P.II-III) - Grading & key message. - Accountability for managers. - Fairness. - Solutions.
Executive Feedback (P.II-III) - Sucks. - External, trusted, knowledgeable.
Peakon (P.III) - Company mood - Drill downs
F&D – key learnings
Focus on the stars Pay unfairly
Separate early When restructuring, cut deeper
Development is the employee’s responsibility
People over Processes – when in doubt say no
„Keep me out of jail“ - Accounting (especially cash) - HR (social security) - Tax & VAT - BaFin
Highly detrimental - Business Continuity - Onboarding
Consistency and fairness - Generally HR - Feedback - Compensation
Toxic processes - Power trips - Ordering, Travel - Low max damage
Business Core - Increase your valuation
by making things repeatable
Invest in automation (Team Witty)
Culture
Define early
Keep management attention
Communicate through actions
Acknowledge deviations
Symbolism in the office
<5 key values
Use your board Monthly KPIs - Financial & operational metrics - Very short commentary
Update on the business - Variable timing, generally quarterly - Long-form (no slides) - Company / Products / Marketing / Competition - Redacted version internally - Send-out before board meeting
Board meetings - Quarterly, at least one/year in person. - 3-4 decision topics - Expose senior team
Help with - Funding (now and later) - Market sentiment - Key decisions - Key hires - Sounding board - Therapy
Not only investors on board!
Stages of a companies‘ scale
< 10 people I. Family
< 40 people II. A few teams
< 100 people III. Departments
100+ people IV. Wide unknowns
Osmosis breaks Contributors à Leads
Feedback Some „CEO work“
The happy times
Culture
Leads à Heads Information flow
Mostly „CEO work“ Major org changes
Dunbar‘s number Company mood Navigation
Org splitting
Internal moves
Multi-location
Define values
