How to Avoid Whiplash As You Pivot from Scrappy Startup to Sprawling Scale-Up
How to Avoid Whiplash As You Pivot from Scrappy Startup to Sprawling Scale-Up
We'd just raised a round. I'd been scrappy for so long, I'd forgotten how to work another way. I got frustrated. Here are some learnings to help you avoid the whiplash.
I've worked at 20+ startups. Startups tend to grow slowly, and then all-at-once. Sometimes you hit a rough patch and an entire department is let go—nothing personal. To combat this, I sought to create so much value that I'd be irreplaceable. That worked when the startup was lean. But what I learned is that when the startup was suddenly scaling, the dynamics of what made me valuable changed completely.
Instead of striving to be irreplaceable, the best leaders actively work to put themselves out of a job. And, as the team grows, your scope of responsibility will narrow. Mature leaders find a way to adapt to that narrowing of scope gracefully. Here’s how I sometimes succeeded and sometimes failed at this, and what I learned.
The best marketing directors aim to put themselves out of a job
I learned this by comparing my own journey to that of one of my peers who leads the data science team. For three years, I led the growth team at Bloc. I had a team of eight—four salespeople and four marketers. But because I wanted to be seen as scrappy and irreplaceable, I didn't have any generalists to delegate to: no marketing coordinators, analysts or PMMs.
The team was all channel marketers and sales reps. My thinking: I'd rather put more headcount toward revenue-producing work than give myself leverage on my own time.
I had a deep understanding of our business. One month we missed revenue by a lot. I was the first person to connect the dots and uncover how a pricing change had inadvertently hurt the business. But I was so busy in the weeds of running the team that instead of communicating my insights thoughtfully with data, I'd state brusque conclusions and get frustrated if my co-founders and COO weren't persuaded.
One of my peers (we'll call him Andy) took a different path. Andy joined the company much later - after we’d raised our Series A. He led our data and ops team, a team that some might consider entirely overhead—not directly revenue-producing at all. Andy made a case that he needed a full-time data analyst to support him. Through a combination of effective delegation and careful focus, he was able to dig into big problems, synthesize data, present it to the team thoughtfully and impact the company's strategy in a way I often failed to do.
What I learned is that whereas I set up my team to be lean, and have coverage across many things, Andy designed his team to provide narrow coverage with tons of agility. He designed his team to put himself out of a job. This enabled him to jump on new opportunities and threats faster. And it freed him up to be a better communicator and drive shifts the company’s strategy.
I doubt that Bloc ever would have found traction if I had taken Andy’s approach from the start. But for the post-Series A stage, his approach was the right one.
If you’re coming out the other side of an inflection point like a fundraise, you’ll see new folks like Andy joining the team. What I did (the immature thing to do) was to resent Andy for wasting resources while I stayed lean.
What I should have done: adapt to this new operating model and ask for more resources. Change my operating model. Delegate more. Don’t be embarrassed or afraid of gaining leverage on your time through.
When it's time to shift gears, don't be afraid to change your hiring approach. Start hiring generalists who don't directly move the bottom line, and reset expectations with your team so you can delegate your workload. Oftentimes, you'll find that they find ways to make the same impact on revenue while taking work off your plate.
To get promoted, narrow your scope instead of broadening it.
It's counterintuitive, but the more you narrow your scope, the more likely you are to gain more responsibility.
Let me share a bit about two senior marketers on my team who were both quite talented. The first one we'll call Karen. Karen was smart and hungry, and she wanted to have a broad impact and eventually lead a team. She was a content marketer and, in addition to our content programs, she made sure to be included in discussions about branding, product strategy, product copy and the support team's email scripts. When it came time to write her annual review, the feedback from other teams was that Karen was knowledgeable and helpful. But the feedback from her own team was that work was often late, copy was rarely polished enough to be published as-is and the content strategy itself was, in many ways, flawed.
Compare Karen's story to that of Jennifer, who owned email marketing. Jennifer was smart, reserved and focused. Truth be told, I was often frustrated Jennifer wasn't taking on more projects. It always seemed like we could be moving faster and shipping more.
But, I had to hand it to her. Jennifer's email campaigns never once had a typo, no mean feat. When our engineers didn't have time to code an email trigger, Jennifer found a way to code it herself. And when our A/B testing tool wasn't working, Jennifer was able to troubleshoot with our engineers. By not taking on as many projects, Jennifer was able to focus. Her focus allowed her to deliver higher quality work, develop new skills and overcome technical hurdles that would have blocked other marketers.
Who do you think I promoted?
Don't feel pressured to cover all the bases, market in every channel or test every idea. It's hard because it can feel like you're arguing to avoid work or against good ideas. Instead, argue in favor of focus. Identifying objectives and key results (OKRs) can be a helpful tool here. And don't assume that, by hiring, you can start to do more things. Instead, view hiring as a way to put more wood behind fewer arrows.
It's easy to believe your extra hour is best spent on the work itself. Instead, I encourage you to spend that hour gaining perspective. It's the only way to clearly see opportunities to apply these two lessons. Journal. Complain about work to a fellow marketer. Attend a marketing talk. It's when we step away from our work that we gain a better perspective.