What Are the Pitfalls of Growth?

Please head over to Kabbage.com where they’ve posted a pretty lengthy interview with me regarding the pitfalls of growth. Once again, hat’s off to Ben Gran for his talent at getting to the really interesting core of growth issues facing many companies today. Things like:

• How much equity should you give up in funding rounds?
• Can growth come at the expense of losses in current markets?
• How do founders keep from losing their roots as a company grows?
• Do you need to worry about key employees burning out and leaving?
• What if the owner has lost their passion?
• Are there options to exit?

If you want a sample, here’s a quote from the interview regarding a common issue with growth:

[message type=”simple”]A lot of companies don’t pay attention to their ability to scale their business BEFORE they invest in growth, new products, and new markets. With every new vertical or product you launch, you are committing to new feature developments, product specialists, industry gurus, and everything else that you need to invest in to make that new launch a success. You are pursuing the extension of your brand in ways that could push your team to the limits. A team of five support people focused on a single industry might be able to triple the number of clients they can serve together. But you might need to hire five more support staff just to launch into the new industry because of the different skill sets you need.  [/message]