Scale Up Series: Why Every Growing Business Needs A Roadmap

This article is Part 2 of the Scale-Up Series. Read Part 1: “Are You the Bottleneck? A Founder’s Guide to Growth and Scale.”

Moving from start-up to scale-up fits into nearly every entrepreneur’s idea of success; it’s where the hard work pays off and impact multiplies. But scaling isn’t just a function of size, it’s a function of a smart strategy. Growth requires thoughtful steps that turn a dream into execution, and for that—we need a roadmap. 

The value of the growth roadmap

For entrepreneurs, ideas aren’t usually the problem. Even if ideas are flowing in abundance, businesses can fail from a lack of clarity and strategy. A growth roadmap helps turn ideas into action and ultimately scalability, while aligning your team, resources and priorities. 

Naturally, there are many different roadmaps that could take a business from point A to B. Many successful businesses use structured systems like EOS® (Entrepreneurial Operating System). In this guide, we’ll explore the baseline principles of a growth roadmap, alongside helpful aspects of EOS®: vision, revenue, people, and infrastructure.

It all starts with vision

Every path starts with a vision. You can’t hit a target you can’t see, and without a vision to tether a leader and their team—efforts are easily scattered. A vision is the blueprint for a company’s growth. From pricing strategies to partnerships to product development, having a vision only benefits your business:

• Faster and clearer decisions. When you’re clear on your vision—you know what to say yes to (and more importantly, no). Your choices naturally align with your values.
• A stronger team. Knowing your vision means you know who to hire—team members that share your goals and values.
• Easy prioritization. As an entrepreneur, knowing how to prioritize is your superpower. Vision provides the framework for prioritization.  

The list goes on. There’s no denying the importance of vision in any venture, but how do you craft a viable one?

As goes the quintessential business advice by Simon Sinek, Start With Why. Your vision should be founded on the answers to these questions: Why do we do what we do? Why do I want to grow my business? Once you establish your clear why, you can set mid-range milestones and long-term goals:

• Mid-range milestones: Vision means having a clear idea of what you want your business to look like 3-5 years from now, including: revenue, team size, offerings, culture, and so forth. Knowing your mid-range milestones can help bridge the gap between where you are now and the long-term goals.
  
• Long-term goals: Where do you want your business to be ten years from now? Long-term goals are both inspiring and ambitious, but should also be clear and measurable. For example: reach $20M in annual revenue and become the top-rated product in our category. Ambitious, clear, measurable.

Aligning revenue targets with the vision

Why do 70 to 80% of small businesses fail within their first five years? Largely because having a vision doesn’t take you all the way there.

Many business owners find themselves stuck in the Vision/Traction gap—the space between initial product or service release and the point of minimum viable traction (MVT). This gap often determines whether a company will take off or fall apart—and revenue is central to the conversation.

Establishing revenue targets is key for turning a vision into actual (measureable) growth. Trusted advice is to start with the end in mind: consider the level of revenue required to support your long-term vision. From there, determine the levers that drive your revenue, such as:

• Transaction size
• Customer lifetime value
• Conversion rates
• Market expansion

It’s also important to align your revenue targets with quarterly or monthly goals. If it feels daunting, you are not alone.  Founders are rarely experts in accounting and finance. An entrepreneur is destined to wear a lot of hats, but it’s also critical to know when to hire an experienced financial professional for informed strategy and execution, especially as you plan to scale.

Fractional CFOs turn finance into a growth engine

At Ascent CFO Solutions, we provide CFO experience precisely scaled to your needs. In early-to-mid stages of the growth journey, a company may not need a CFO full-time. That’s why we connect businesses to strategic financial guidance from a proven CFO on a part-time or interim basis—it is often a better fit in regards to cost, commitment, and quality. 

If you’re looking for help building a sustainable financial foundation for accelerated growth, book a call with a CFO here.

The EOS® approach to revenue

EOS® uses a Vision/Traction Organizer® to help leaders clarify their vision, but also the steps for getting there (traction). From there, The EOS Scorecard^TM enables management to stay accountable with what is needed for progress. As far as revenue goes, EOS® teaches the 8 Cash Flow Drivers—a structured approach that allows businesses to understand the key factors driving profitability. 

Revenue is your vision playing out in the world. It is essential for investing in the resources, infrastructure, and team necessary to expand. A deep understanding of this step, aided by support from a Fractional CFO and/or EOS® tools, can help keep your business alive. 

Our Fractional CFOs are experienced in EOS® and our firm has worked with many companies using it. While certainly not required, having both resources can be a powerful combination for setting and reaching the right targets.

Putting the right people in the right seats

Having the right people in the right seats continues to be sage advice for the entrepreneur scaling their business. Even the best strategy will flop in the hands of the wrong people, or with the right people in the wrong roles.

A growing company needs people who can grow with it. “Right people, right seats” is a dynamic approach to building a team that can uphold culture, execution, and accountability—all key for growth. Taking an honest look at your team is an ongoing necessity. What are you looking for?

• Quantity – The stronger the team, the stronger the growth potential. In a scaling scenario, hiring ahead of revenue is sometimes necessary to prevent bottlenecks. And sometimes it’s not about the number of people in the room, but the number of skills. Team size should be assessed alongside future goals—what kind of org chart is necessary to get from here to there?
  
• Quality – One mistake business owners often make is hiring for talent alone. In the long term, it’s wise to hire individuals who are aligned with company values. Maturity also plays into the conversation: a growing business needs structured & mature leadership that can elevate strategic thinking, accountability, and a cross-functional approach.
  
• Full-time/Part-time/Fractional – Not every team member has to be a full-time employee. Evaluate your options. Oftentimes, you can get a top-quality professional on your team for a fraction of the cost of a full-time hire by going the fractional route.

The EOS® approach to people

Right people, right seats is a fundamental EOS® principle.  Here is a closer look:

• Right people: Finding the people who align with your company’s core values. “Right people” isn’t a standard, it’s subjective and based on the nature of your business.
• Right seats: This is about clarifying responsibilities that each person is accountable for. “Right seats” means maintaining an agreements-based culture, as in: everyone is clear about what they do and why they do it.

Regarding people, EOS® offers another helpful framework known as GWC: Get It/Want It/Capacity to do it. As you assess your team and roles, ask three questions about a person:

1. Do they get it?
2. Do they actually want the role?
3. Do they have the capacity to meet (or exceed) the expectations of the role? 

It’s helpful for entrepreneurs to remember: who got you here, might not be who gets you there. Being an exemplary leader sometimes requires the tough but invaluable decision to evolve the team in service of the vision.

The evolving team: A real-life example

Growth happens in stages, and certain stages require different areas of expertise. The journey of SendGrid, a Denver tech startup, is the perfect example of this. 

When SendGrid was founded in 2009, co-founder Issac Saldana served as the company’s CEO to guide them through the startup stage. In 2011, he stepped down to focus on product development, as Jim Franklin became CEO—leading the company through an era of major growth. During Franklin’s time as CEO, SendGrid went from 20 employees to 250, and from a few thousand customers to over 175,000.

In September 2014, Sameer Dholakia stepped in as the CEO, taking the company even further on their growth roadmap. He played a key role in their 2017 IPO and its acquisition by Twilio for around $2 billion. Growth happens in stages, case in point, and the team has to evolve along with it.

Infrastructure: Systems for success

If you live in a growing city, then you’re familiar with the specific type of issues that accompany an increasing population: infrastructure.

Growth will immediately spotlight the structural strengths and weaknesses of a company. Without solid infrastructure, decision-making slows down, important items slip through the cracks, and overwhelm becomes the dominant culture. 

Strong infrastructure allows a business to operate effectively and consistently. This encompasses tangible aspects, like your physical assets and the people in your organization. But it also includes the intangible, processes like workflow, legal and compliance, and technology. Infrastructure warrants its own conversation (coming soon), but these are some of the key components: 

• Data Frameworks – A growing business needs regular access to insights from the data tracking its metrics of growth—revenue, churn rate, customer acquisition, etc. Forecasts and dashboards are examples of infrastructure that can help leaders detect and solve issues before they amplify.
  
• Standard Operating Procedures – Standard procedures are a simple way to save time and increase the efficiency of your team. Processes like onboarding, invoicing, and customer service can be documented and repeatable. 
  
• Technology – Determining which technology will best support your operations is an important aspect of sustainable growth. Your tech stack—inclusive of task management platforms, communication hubs, etcetera—should be able to grow with you. In a world full of tech platforms, the right match matters.

When it comes to infrastructure, the key is to implement it before things start to break down. Don’t wait for chaos to rebuild your city, so to speak. When it’s done right, infrastructure will speed things up, create more space for strategy, and create a culture of confidence.

The roadmap: Putting it all together

When you take a step back and look at the roadmap to growth in totality, it’s a bit of a paradox. On the one hand, it’s just a series of steps; a pattern remotely consistent across successful companies. On the other, the closer you get to the roadmap, the more complex it becomes. Each step is its own winding road.

Such is the nature of running a business. As Warren Buffet famously said, “business is simple, but not easy.”

Creating a roadmap to growth is what turns a vision for scaling your company into reality. It also is a living reminder that your vision, revenue, people, and infrastructure aren’t isolated—they’re interdependent. Companies doing it right keep their roadmap visible. It’s actionable and revisited regularly. Because growth isn’t something you stumble on by chance, it’s something you build—one step at a time.

The question is, where is your company now on the roadmap to growth and scale? And even more importantly: what’s your next move?

Wherever you are in your growth trajectory, Ascent CFO Solutions is here to provide the expertise you need. From bootstrapped ventures to private equity and venture capital-backed organizations, our team brings highly relevant experience and industry-specific insights to your unique challenges. Reach out today and start the conversation with a CFO.

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About the Author: Dan DeGolier is the Founder & CEO of Ascent CFO Solutions. He is passionate about helping entrepreneurs ‘Upward’ to help them understand their finances and cash flows and obtain the capital needed to grow. A special thanks to Justin Boling, EOS Implementer® at EOS Worldwide, for contributing to the EOS portions of this article.