Home
Professional
Services
Educational
Services
About
Us
Contact
Us
    Corlyx Business Consulting










Ask about a
Complimentary
Consultation
 

From the
Entrepreneurial
to the
Managed Growth
Stage

The same skills that make an Entrepreneur successful in taking his or her unique idea from an unproven concept through to a functioning business, will often become a hinderance as that business moves from its early "Entrepreneurial" phase into a "Managed Growth" phase that it must attain for its long term success.

The business eventually reaches a point where it can no longer fly by the seat of its pants.    The business needs to mature.    Its whole character must begin to change.    For example, the need begins to emerge for processes and procedures to take precedence over a dependence on the judgment of key people.     Those priceless individuals who have so successfully sheparded their selected responsibilities up to this point need to develop succession plans.    Business growth will demand it.

Often, the transition phase occurs between years five and seven.    And that's when the Entrepreneur begins to chaff under constraints whose rigidity would have proven fatal to the business in its early days.     The question is invariably asked, "We're doing business the way we always have;  why aren't we growing anymore?"


   

An Example

A software development company was started by a young Entrepreneur who had the desire to create...

  • effective custom software solutions for unique business requirements,
  • a working environment for his staff that would inspire creativity and foster commitment to the company.

He was very successful in attracting talented employees and establishing relationships with computer suppliers who promoted his services in order to sell their hardware.

It seemed like a perfect model for business success.    And in fact, it functioned extremely well for five years.    In its sixth year, however, our happy Entrepreneur found himself crumbling under the pressure of being...

  • President - charting the corporate course, attending to client relationship management, negotiating contracts, etc.;
  • Marketing Director - developing new methods of promoting the company and its services;
  • Salesman - closing sales in concert with various computer sales professionals;
  • Human Resources Director - Hiring, firing, setting compensation and benefit plans, establishing policy, settling internal squabbles between employees, etc.;
  • Operations Manager - assuring that the staff produced the promised solutions within the allotted time;
  • Chief Financial Officer - managing cash flow, asset investments, collections, and so much more.

While the company was a small, tightly knit organization with finite demands, he could hold all of the reins in one hand while waving his hat with the other.    Success crept up on him and with seemingly no warning, he woke up to see he had failed to prepare for his company's growth.

From the perspective of one who is reading this example story, the solutions are straight forward and some even simple.     For the Entrepreneur who has spent five years working "in" his business and not "on" his business, though, the whole situation can be overwhelming.    Typically, his first reaction is to sell the business before any prospective buyer recognizes the shortcomings he has just acknowledged.

Corlyx offered the Entrepreneur an alternative to selling the business that allowed for the continued growth of his successful startup and answered the question with "You aren't growing anymore because you're doing business like you always have."


BACK