Hi all. I'm beginning to scale my business up with the aim of going from the present 100K/yr profit pace to 1M/yr. I'm pretty comfortable dealing with most of the other aspects of running the business and finding resources to learn specific tasks, but I've never dealt in this range of scale before.
Are there any suggestions for issues specific to scaling? Or are there good resources about scaling, specifically? I don't want to be blindsided by something new I would have never thought about.
Some new issues I anticipate:
1. Cash/liquidity - Since revenue lags expenditures, and you're scaling up expenditures. So far, I've just been using a regular credit card and paying it off as I go.
2. HR issues - As the number of staff/freelancers grows (currently 2, aiming for 10-15 at least, eventually), the probability of running into people troubles increases. Is it worth hiring a middle-manager, etc.?
3. Market saturation or cannibalization - Outgrowing your market with declining returns. I see some ways to expand horizontally if I have to, but it's more efficient if I don't have to. Also, I may set up a second brand that is actually me as well to dominate the niche, etc.
4. No idea, but legal/accounting, etc. issues?
I don't think the details of my business are really important or relevant, so I'll only describe it briefly. Basically, I've created a very good slowlane job for myself in selling a form of art. (Before you ask, no, not porn!) I'm turning it into a fastlane business. Creating my own platform to gain control is rather straightforward. Dissociating my time from the product is trickier, but I think I've managed to figure most of that out. I did a couple trial runs using outsourced labor for various parts and could still turn a healthy profit. I essentially am turning into an art studio with myself as the art director, rather than doing the art myself. The barrier is quite high for a lot of this (assembling teams to produce good art for low cost is probably 10x harder than doing good art yourself, which is already hard enough). The need is already present and well-validated.
The final element is scale. Once the machine is working... why not go crazy growing? This last part is what I'm trying to figure out.
Thanks for any input!
Are there any suggestions for issues specific to scaling? Or are there good resources about scaling, specifically? I don't want to be blindsided by something new I would have never thought about.
Some new issues I anticipate:
1. Cash/liquidity - Since revenue lags expenditures, and you're scaling up expenditures. So far, I've just been using a regular credit card and paying it off as I go.
2. HR issues - As the number of staff/freelancers grows (currently 2, aiming for 10-15 at least, eventually), the probability of running into people troubles increases. Is it worth hiring a middle-manager, etc.?
3. Market saturation or cannibalization - Outgrowing your market with declining returns. I see some ways to expand horizontally if I have to, but it's more efficient if I don't have to. Also, I may set up a second brand that is actually me as well to dominate the niche, etc.
4. No idea, but legal/accounting, etc. issues?
I don't think the details of my business are really important or relevant, so I'll only describe it briefly. Basically, I've created a very good slowlane job for myself in selling a form of art. (Before you ask, no, not porn!) I'm turning it into a fastlane business. Creating my own platform to gain control is rather straightforward. Dissociating my time from the product is trickier, but I think I've managed to figure most of that out. I did a couple trial runs using outsourced labor for various parts and could still turn a healthy profit. I essentially am turning into an art studio with myself as the art director, rather than doing the art myself. The barrier is quite high for a lot of this (assembling teams to produce good art for low cost is probably 10x harder than doing good art yourself, which is already hard enough). The need is already present and well-validated.
The final element is scale. Once the machine is working... why not go crazy growing? This last part is what I'm trying to figure out.
Thanks for any input!
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