The Life-Cycle of a StartupSCOPE - these are the five sub-phases that punctuate each of the larger phases new ventures go through as they scale. SCOPE consists of the Start, Chaos, Organizing, Producing, and Expansion. SCOPE repeats each time a startup scales up and moves on to a new phase in its life-cycle.A founder’s first challenge is to create a working relationship with co-founders and early hires. Then, the founder builds a team. Successful teams lead to larger organizations and successful organizations must maintain agility. These are the four phases in a startup's life-cycle and the challenges founders face as they grow from 2 to 100 people.In a startup, each phase of growth starts with exuberance, a feeling of invincibility, and confidence that you are part of something incredible. This is the start.The elation of forming belies the challenges of creating something meaningful. Difficulty eventually leads to conflict and the chaos stage. This is a rocky divergence from the conflict avoidance that characterized the start stage and indicates a desire to face the task at hand.If the venture survives the chaos, it must learn to manage conflict effectively and work productively. To that end, systems and processes have to be established, tested, and modified during the organizing stage. The sustained effectiveness of the producing stage comes from the systems and processes created during the organizing stage.Once a team has moved through all four stages successfully, it’s earned the right to expand and to move to the next phase in the life-cycle of the business which will once again start with the unsustainable exuberance and feelings of invincibility typical of the start phase.
Start – the beginning part of a group’s life. During this sub-phase group members are working to figure out the goals of the group and the roles they will play. This time is often characterized by an irrational exuberance, an inflated sense of accomplishment, and a desire to maintain harmony by sublimating conflict. During the start, groups are especially prone to taking trips to Abilene.
Chaos – is the result of the inevitable failure that comes from the false harmony and lack of critical thinking of the start sub-phase. Chaos usually begins by attempting to assign blame. Gradually, successful groups hash out group goals, individuals' roles, and the ways the group will work together.
Organizing – happens when the group settles on the processes it will use to move passed chaos. Building on the hard lessons learned during the prior two sub-phases (start and chaos), these processes are gradually amended and eventually normalized.
Producing – can happen only if the group can survive the first three sub-phases (start, chaos, and organizing). At this point group members are comfortable with the goals of the group, the roles of the individuals, and the processes created to empower the group to perform.
Expand – a group that has successfully passed through the first four sub-phases (start, chaos, organizing, andproducing) will be able to expand. This expansion brings about a phase shift in the organization from one major phase in its life-cycle to the next (e.g., co-founder relationships to building a team).
Co-founder relationshipsSharing your vision, successes, and failures with someone else is one of the great joys of creating a startup. It's also the biggest frustration.I help co-founders have the difficult conversations necessary to set the stage for success down the road. By helping founders understand and appreciate how their thinking preferences differ from their co-founders, I enable them to avoid pitfalls while enhancing collaboration and the potential for creativity.My work with co-founders includes coaching, mediation, and advisement.
Your team is highly motivated and passionate about what they do. They're driven to work long hours with few resources when the end of your runway is in sight and fast approaching. They're working hard, that's a given, but are they working smart? Nothing is worse for a startup than wasting time and I save startups lots of time.
Successful startups that have found product/market fit enter a growth phase where their main concern is developing the organization. I help these companies think about large systems issues. How do you sustain the culture you worked so hard to create? How do you create formal and informal drivers of engagement and motivation? How do you reap the benefits of specialization and economies of scale without creating silos and bureaucracy? (Check out the video above for a hint.) How do you maintain lightning fast information flow?How you answer these questions and the way in which you navigate this stage will determine if your startup will be a lasting success or a flash in the pan.
The problem with growing bigger is that it requires more coordination, systems, and formal processes. All of those structures can quickly turn a startup into a bureaucracy. At this stage of growth you have to think about maintaining creativity and innovation, and managing diversity. If you do these things well, you will build a long lasting enterprise. I help organizations manage this growth through education and interventions designed to ensure continued agility even while the organization grows.