028: Scaling Up

Michael Gerber’s E-Myth teaches us the importance of designing your business (and your processes) to be able to scale.

The thinking goes, that if you can hire people to gradually take on the technical roles in your business, you can free yourself up to work on the business rather than work in the business.

If we were to play devil’s advocate though, keeping the business small allows you to experiment, to pivot, to be nimble and agile. You can adjust your focus as often as you like, conducting experiments to level up your business offering time and time again. 

Once you’ve hired, your focus shifts to ensuring there is enough work in the pipeline to support the new people. This means you can’t be quite as nomadic as you once were. And keeping the business small also enables you to maintain control - if that’s what you’re after. 

So, when do you scale? 

Do you get your offering perfect, and then scale? 

Do you bring people in sooner because a diverse set of opinions can bring new solutions you wouldn’t have thought of?

Do you hire someone at a junior level - to take over technical aspects of running the business? Or do you get someone at a director level to bounce ideas off and be a fifth hammer?

And is it better to hire someone to replace you in the business? Or is it better to bring someone in with a completely different, brand new set of skills?

I’ve been grappling with these answers for a couple of years now and I don’t yet have the answers for them. Send me a message back if you have any thoughts of your own.

I’ll share my thoughts again when I do. 

James