Start up entrepreneurs have to improve self to the next level to scale up business

Ateneo Professor on Entrepreneurship

Repost from QZ com by Jim Alampi | November 12, 2013

One of the biggest challenge to start up entrepreneurs is scaling up the business.  This is most especially true in the PHL but is not in any way unique challenge.  In US,  of the 6 million start ups, only 25% achieve sales of more than $l million a year.  (It may be less in the PHL)

The bottleneck is of course at the head - the founder. The traits that made the start up rise up -  quick decision, deciding on limited information, flexibility, risk taker etc. may be detrimental to the growth of the company.  A growing company must be more efficient, need a new set of skills, and may even require a new set of team members.  The founders, pioneers may even be obsolete for the new firm, even the entrepreneur, himself and even look for a new CEO.

The problem usually though is with personal mastery and growth of the man on top.

Only one in four entrepreneurs see the light.  See the rest of the article:


 In  my experience, only about one entrepreneur in four is able to recognize, admit, and actually modify their leadership style to take a company to the next level of growth. The ones that do it are constantly learning, measuring themselves against other successful CEOs in larger companies, honing their leadership skills, asking peers to assess their performance and holding themselves accountable. They exhibit extreme humility. Great CEOs know that charisma can be a disease, that passion is important, and that motivational pep talks usually don’t last long. The tempered maturity required of a CEO of a $50 million company is a far cry from the “culture of chaos” in a startup.

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A key element in moving from startup to mature growth involves a CEO’s commitment to core values and the development of people. Core values are the glue in any company and they usually evolve from the personal values of an entrepreneur. They define the owner’s reputation, the company’s reputation and conduct in the marketplace and guidelines for behavior. Great companies hire and fire for core values, recognizing that you can teach skills but not values.

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Great CEOs make sure that only the right people get on the payroll. The recruiting and hiring process is rigorous, and if an error has been made, these companies make decisions relatively quickly and move on. In startup companies, the worst justification for keeping the wrong talent is a flawed philosophy that I call, “a warm body is better than nobody.” This mentality can be a real growth limiter.  If there’s one guarantee regarding people: jobs will always outgrow them (but that’s another article altogether).

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So if you’re trying to take your business to the next level remember this, you cannot keep people whose jobs have outgrown them, even if that person is you—the startup-savvy CEO.