Scaling teams: what founders and leaders have learned

Growing a business is one thing. Growing the team around it is another.

For Founders and Leaders of start-ups and scale-ups, people decisions are often the most consequential ones they make. Hire too early and you stretch a business that isn’t ready. Hire too late and you stall the very growth you’ve been working towards. Get the culture wrong and the best people leave before they’ve had a chance to make a difference.

As part of our Product | People | Potential interview series, we ask every Founder and Leader the same question about scaling teams. The answers are rarely the same. But the honesty in them usually is.

Here’s what some of the people we’ve spoken to had to say.

Finding the right people takes longer than you think

Ronan Finnegan, co-founder at Spacebands

“Finding our core team members took us 4 months; a lot longer than expected. It was critical however that we found the right people for both personal values and skills as we are so aware that people will shape our future. We often go with our ‘gut feel’ here at spacebands and are led frequently by this intuition.”

Full interview

Diversity of skills matters as much as expertise

Joshua Steer, Founder and CEO of Radii Devices

“Scaling and growing our team has been challenging, as finding talent with the right expertise and alignment with our mission is vital. We focus on identifying individuals who are passionate about solving the problem we’re addressing and are ready to step up to the challenge. In a small team, it is critical you ensure you have a diversity of skills, experience and perspective and find people who are happy to input and feedback outside their area of expertise.”

Full interview

Hire with the customer in mind

Tom Ridges, founder of Herdify

“When it comes to growing the team, this was always going to be tricky process for a startup. As with all small groups of people, chemistry is pretty fundamental and making sure the team fit is there is essential… crucial actually. Often startups rely on a team made up of founders and lots of tactical process/sales/marketing hires, but fall short in focusing on hires based on the actual needs of the customer. When you hire with user benefit in mind you are building a team that will ultimately generates growth.”

Full interview

Job specs aren’t just for hiring

Cat Jones, founder and CEO of Byway

“Our hiring process is more involved than average because we want to ensure a good fit. As we grow and scale, we need to specialise functions and link teams more effectively. The pace of organisational change and the fast growth of our team means that we constantly juggle roles and responsibilities. One tip I have is to use job specs. Every role, whether newly created or promoted into, has a detailed job spec. This helps in career conversations and in planning for future roles. Sharing these specs with employees helps them understand the requirements and responsibilities of potential future positions, allowing them to prepare and grow into those roles.”

Full interview

Don’t overlook the support that’s available

Florence Pardoe, founder of GOOD: Stories in Food

“When I was thinking about starting the business, I was very fortunate to meet someone who told me about Access to Work. Because of my chronic health conditions, there is no way I could have managed the workload required to start and grow a business without support. Access to Work is a DWP initiative that provides support to people with health challenges that limit their ability to work. I received funding for a support worker who helps me with the heavy lifting for computer-based tasks.”

Full interview