How To Kick Your Business Into Hyper-Growth Mode

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The challenges faced by managers of fast growing start-up companies today are no different than those faced a decade or more ago by CEOs of major corporations. Then, as now, executives worry about properly capitalizing their company, keeping customers satisfied, getting great employees in place and developing a good corporate culture.

What is drastically different now, however, is the speed at which we have to do things. When speed is introduced into the equation, there are very few activities--physical or intellectual--that don't become geometrically more difficult. Balancing speed with quality taxes even the best managers today.

It is ironic that the development of so many new technologies, coupled with the refinement of old ones, is generating a myriad of new opportunities while, at the same time, increasing the amount of work that needs to be done. Wasn't technology supposed to make our work lives so much easier, so much more efficient? Where are all those leisure hours economists and sociologists were predicting just a few years ago?

The answer, of course, is that thanks to technology most businesses are indeed more efficient today, which allows for more business to be done. More business usually means expansion.

Greenwich Technologies Partners builds network infrastructure for companies that view e-commerce as an essential asset; every day we see both the benefits and pitfalls of technology. For today's manager, speed is both an ally and a formidable challenge.

Managing a hyper-growth company demands vigilant attention to capital, people and customers. When considering what is required to successfully steward a young company, each of these areas are inextricably linked. Customers won't buy unless the right sales people are in place and acquiring the right people requires substantial capital. To obtain capital, you need to prove you have, or can get, customers. Sounds like the old Catch 22, doesn't it?

Executives need the ability to develop a business plan and present a vision that articulates in financial terms a concept of business growth that is strong enough to persuade the gatekeepers of capital to back them. The idea comes first. Then top executives need answer a list of questions: What is the addressable market? Who are the competitors? How can this idea alter the balance of competitive power inside the market?

The idea must be easily and quickly transferable to a strategy that is organic, one that can grow and change as the company does. The need for capital is ever-present, whether the company is in start-up mode, seeking third-round venture capital, filing an IPO or celebrating its one hundredth anniversary. It is an aspect of business a manager never can ignore.

There certainly is no dearth of good business ideas today. Dollars are easier to come by than they were just a few years ago, but "quality money" is not. There is a vast amount of difference to the future growth of a company between investment from a top-tier venture capital firm and the same from what we'll call a group of random rich guys. The best investor firms provide strategic advice, relationships and validation. Managers need to remember that smart money follows other smart money, and in this people-constrained environment, smart people follow smart money.

Today's capital markets are volatile at best, as anyone tracking the seismic eruptions of the NASDAQ can well attest. Top tier firms can weather the storm and a day's drop of 30 percent in the market most likely won't alter their already-considered valuation of a company. But the random rich guys' commitment to your company when Microsoft was at 120 too often goes south when Microsoft's stock is at 60. This is a real-world scenario that, unfortunately for a number of start-ups, has been played out too often over the past few weeks. True, beggars can't be choosers - an old aphorism that points to the importance of your initial choice of funding and funders.

While in the race for capital the finish line rarely is crossed, once the initial hurdles are cleared a company's growth is better served with the manager's attention given to bringing the best people on board. Experience and expertise are key, but perhaps of even greater importance is a diversity of thought and personality. Look for differences that will help create a cohesive culture in which everyone listens to each other and is open to different perspectives and problems. The most successful companies are the ones that turn problems into opportunities because their own people offer solutions.

The art of people management often is lost in a hyper-growth company. When the number of employees increases at an exponential rate in a short period of time, the personal and professional goals of the individual sometimes are overlooked. To avoid the depersonalization of employees in the face of company success--and to sustain that success--put your people in a position to succeed by evaluating their strengths and making sure their area of responsibility accentuates those qualities.

People management should not be confined solely to those who report to you. Learn to manage yourself. Emotional compartmentalization is key to both your personal health and your company's well being. Leave the last phone conversation or meeting behind when you begin the next. Your focus needs to be on what is occurring at the moment, not what the banker said yesterday or what tomorrow's budget review might indicate.

Hyper growth and the bombardment of information has taken away from business leaders the time to think strategically. If you have the right people in place, they are fighting--and presumably winning--the daily battles. Your responsibility then becomes to think three or four quarters ahead. Where will the momentum of completing today's projects take you in the future? Your head needs to be there long before you arrive. And to get there you might try a regular dinner or off-site gathering with your management team during which you eschew day-to-day tactics in favor of discussing only long-term strategies.

The manager's concentration evolves as the company's scale evolves. A CEO's involvement in acquiring capital, recruiting top prospects, sales and customer management will decrease as the company grows. Involvement within those areas will be spent on the most high impact activities--with the most sought-after senior recruits, the most important prospecting sales calls or the biggest operational projects. The areas of involvement don't change; only the focus on management does.

Joseph P. Beninati founded Greenwich Technology Partners, a provider of intelligence used to engineer infrastructures that enable e-success, in May 1997. He has served as chairman and chief executive officer since its inception. Under Mr. Beninati's leadership, Greenwich Technology Partners has become one of the fastest-growing companies in the United States.