Crossing the Chasm From Starting to Scaling: An Entrepreneur’s Dilemma

We regularly talk to business owners with inspiring stories. Their small seed of an idea has become a company with customers, employees, buildings, expenses, and a fair share of challenges! These leaders (and their early team members) often reminisce about the ‘good old days’ when they were able to personally serve breakfast to the entire company and there was a shared goal to do ‘whatever it takes’ to serve the customer.

Those early days of ‘starting’ have now given way to ‘scaling’ - requiring lots of meetings and planning and discussion to get everyone on the same page. Even worse for many of them is the fact that the camaraderie of the early days is hard if not impossible to replicate with employees who see the purpose of the company as less of a mission or purpose and more of a job.

In our experience, the things that made the business successful at the start are far from the abilities that are needed to continue growing the business. Another way to say that is “What got you here won’t get you there”. We call that The Entrepreneur’s Dilemma.

So, what do you need to get “there”? One important thing to do is to figure out where “there” is! Figuring out your North Star is a critical step. You also need to determine who you need to surround yourself with. Often the early employees who loved the challenge of starting something aren’t the right ones to help you develop repeatable processes and ways of working. 

That’s why we wrote the book An Entrepreneur’s Dilemma. We want to help as many business owners as possible who are trying to figure out where they are going and how to get there. Pick up your copy here. Already read it? Let us know what you think with a review on Amazon!