Seven Ways to Prepare Your Startup to Scale Up

Here's seven ways you can prepare now to scale up soon, or far down the road.

1. Understand the Basics Behind Your Startup

As the always insightful Neil Patel points out, you can't scale if you don't understand the fundamentals about your startup. He notes far too many businesses fail at scaling because they start too soon without first auditing their company.

To begin, scope out your target users so you'll know who to focus on in your marketing once growth occurs. You'll also want to find marketing channels with the biggest ROI potential. Finding these alone can help you know where to market as a step up the ladder.

Also, look at the resources you have and whether you can truly scale quickly, or have to do it gradually over a period of years.

2. Use Automation to Save Time

The more you can use automation tools to do manual tasks, the more time you'll have to hone in on growing your tech company. Automation is everywhere now, including in CRM software to help with everything from marketing, cloud storage, and payroll.

Consider using free apps like Capsule CRM, Mailchimp, or Campaign Monitor with similar automated features.

3. Place More Emphasis on Marketing

As Techworld points out, you need to integrate your marketing efforts to help build your brand. HubSpot notes you can enhance this with their integrated marketing software and CRM to help build better connections.

The more you can reach people with your content, especially by enlightening them on solving a problem, the more popular you'll become. It helps to use automation tools from places like Salesforce Pardot to improve the timing on reaching more people.

4. Don't Be Too Proud to Outsource Some Duties

To offset some of your workload again, try doing some outsourcing of overly laborious tasks. You'll need to find a balance here between outsourcing and employee duties. Regardless, leave the most important tasks needed for growth to your employees so they'll envision a goal to work toward.

5. Continually Update Your Digital Brand

Perhaps you have an eye on scaling within the next year or two. Be careful about neglecting your digital brand since you may have inconsistencies on different social channels or other sites.

Keep a consistency going, and always update your brand message periodically to keep your tech mission clear. When growth occurs, you'll be prepared to deliver your message without clarity issues.

6. Look Into Enterprise Management Incentive Plans

If you're new to EMI, you'll want to work with a quality accountant to help you take this tax scheme to save you money over time. It's going to help your company by incentivising talent and rewarding your staff who will have a stake in the future growth of the business.

Saving money from this option helps you accumulate more talent for your scaling goals. If you're unsure about what criteria you need to qualify, take a look at our EMI services page.

7. Take Investment Options Like SEIS And EIS

At some point, you may need to go to investors to help you grow to the next level. Using a Seed Enterprise Investment Schemes or an Enterprise Investment Scheme gives you more clout to raise funds. Investors get tax breaks themselves when they see you've taken this investment option.