Adrie's Blog

Fast, Faster, Fastest

These days when you read anything about starting your own company it is always about making it BIG, quickly, becoming the next Google. There are hundreds of marketing companies that can help you grow your business rapidly with the aide of social media. And of course there are scores of examples of companies that did not exist ten years ago and are now an integral part of our society, like Google and Facebook but on the other side of that equation you will find a hundred score of companies that no one has ever heard of, which are still in the growth stage or never even made it at all.

I once stood at the head of a company that grew in six years from 0 to 1100 employees. Partly through acquisition and largely due to the fact that money wasn't hard to come by. It was a very risky strategy, with many unknowns that had to be overcome during the growth stages but it went well, with a great exit. But there was a price to pay:
- every single year was a dog year and counted at least double
- many people could not keep up with the growth and fell aside
- the financials risks were enormous

For something like that you have to gather a team around you of extremely loyal and dedicated people that believe in the concept.

In this day and age, with tight resources, it is very difficult to pull off that kind of strategy. Just having an idea is not a reason anymore to have financiers hand over 25 million, suppliers are careful extending credit and talent stays put where they are safe instead of taking a big risk.

On the one hand it is a pity, as a lot of great ideas never get off the ground. On the other hand you see a lot of new, creative solutions that come into being instead of the "easy money", and there is a lot more focus on sustainability of enterprises. The advantage of slow growth rather then stellar rises is that you build a much stronger base for your company and that in that sense your business becomes a long term, sustainable one.

Use social media to support the building of your company, use it as a tool, not as the solution. It can be very strong but never forget that there are not short cuts to building relationships, it requires time and investment and can make or break your business.

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