On June 21, our Co-Founder and COO David Li spoke at Collision 2022 about using automation to hack scale. Oftentimes, we talk about how start-ups and smaller businesses can use growth hacking. But, according to David, we’re focussing on the wrong aspects and should instead be talking about how we can hack scale.
In case you missed it, here are some key takeaways about focussing on your core business, not scaling, and how automation can help you implement hacks into your scaling process.
Focussing on your core business
When you’re building a business from scratch, there is a lot to consider. You need to create your mission, vision, and values that will define your overall brand, focus on providing value for your clients, undertake research and development, establish your revenue generation, and competitive edge… in addition to growing your business and team.
These are all valuable, but they take time. And for many founders and small teams, time is in short supply.
Why do we think about scale?
Scaling is vital for any successful growing business. But you can’t take shortcuts to scale.
The problem is that while scaling will multiply your revenue, it will also multiply your shortcomings.
So in this case, you’ll need to evaluate whether you’re truly ready to scale. You can’t grow properly without constant product development to keep aligned with scaling and you’ll need to ensure your tech resources can handle more clients as they come in. What’s more, when you have more clients, you’ll need to ensure your customer experience is consistent so that nothing slips through the cracks.
How many times per day, per week, per quarter do you perform a repetitive process that's ideal to be automated?
The shocking reality is that two-thirds of the fastest-growing companies fail. So how do you ensure that doesn’t happen to you and that your business is truly ready to scale?
Hack scale with automation
Automation is ideal for business processes that are repeatable and predictable. Automation is useful at any phase of building a business, including conception, product-market fit, growth, and scale.
At Collision, during his presentation, David Li mentioned that today, most pilots use auto-pilot on planes 90% of the time and are only flying the plane about 10% of the time. But that 10% is actually the most critical, as during that time, the pilot is focussing on the core mission: to reach the destination safely. And this metaphor applies to automation as well.
Ultimately, automation is a tool to bring the focus back to your core business so you aren’t losing time and resources to those processes that can be automated. David Li concluded his talk with the following words:
“Don’t hack growth, ever. Hack scale. And be the pilot, not the auto-pilot.”
Did you miss us at Collision? Not to worry! Visit our Platform Page to learn more about us and book a demo today to speak with one of our experts about how you can hack scale with Wrk!
