From 'I am' to 'I lead': the difference between flying and crashing a B2B scale up.

Throughout my career I've seen many B2B scale-ups fly, and many crash. The main difference, and number one reason for flight or falter, has been the adaptability of the founder. Once scale-ups have grown to a certain point, the role of the founder changes suddenly and profoundly. Their role shifts from doing everything themselves, to running a team. They remain a key figure in the business, but they are no longer the only key figure. Instead of their role being 'I am the business', they have to learn to say 'I lead a business.'

But adapting to this change isn't necessarily the end of the problem; in practice, it might be that nothing changes. Adding new people to the business introduces a range of fresh skillsets, which, when properly utilised, allow the business to continue to scale and move at speed internally. But the benefits of a wider team aren't maximised in many scale-ups. Oftentimes everything from the team still has to move through the founder, creating a bottleneck. The founder gets overwhelmed- while they might say they lead, rather than are their business, this is nominal. In practice, their decision making and input still reaches all corners of the business. Consequently, the money the business has, and the run time it has to achieve growth, is frittered and potential growth is diminished thanks to a lack of speed. There's too much focus on control rather than allowing the team to bring their individual expertise to the table. At a certain point, the founder has to learn to loosen the reigns and trust their team to take the initiative.

Those founders who experiment with delegated control are the ones whose businesses will do the best. The step may feel counter-intuitive; founders of scale-ups have a strong emotional connection to their business and want to protect it to see it thrive. Yet in reality, founders will find that by doing less, they can give their business more.