In the sixth small business roadmap stage we explore the final question: how can we grow this business beyond ourselves and into greater impact in the world and wealth in the company?
We dig into the 11 steps of Scale where the goal is to hone, discover and experiment towards a more scalable and sustainable business.
To put it simply, this stage is about shifting from clawing out growth one handful at a time, to a business with one of those magical hockey stick growth charts.
We also finish out this episode with reflections on key takeaways and what we learned in talking through this whole roadmap. Enjoy!
(PS: If you’re not already, subscribe in itunes so you can get the next episode in your sleep.)
It’s better to listen on the go! Subscribe on iTunes
“The scale business shift: from clawing out growth each week to one of those magical hockey stick charts”
Tweet This
Scale Steps:
The real meat of each of these items is in the conversation. The items below are meant as simply a placeholder while you listen to the episode.
- Measure product/market fit. Lots of good conversation about this in the episode.
- Do stuff to get to product/market fit: evolve your product, launch new features (reduce churn / improve retention, etc).
- Do stuff to adapt the market you’re reaching (the “market” piece of p/m fit).
- Time for another pivot or persevere checkpoint.
- Achieve product/market fit (traction). Yay! (Again, lots of important talk about this stuff in the episode.)
- Transition to CEO mode: vision, hiring and making sure the team has enough resources to do what they need to do. (Get yourself a blazer with gold buttons.)
- Decide again: bootstrap or raise money (again)?
- Create and execute your hiring plan. “Product’s doing fine but customer support is out of hand now,” etc.
- Review/adjust business model. “What’s really our business model and how do we optimize it?”
- Hone your “customer acquisition channels.” (That’s a fancy way to say “how you get new customers.”)
- Pop some Cris or Moee Shambin champaim!
The Roadmap Episodes:
- Clarity (episode 100)
- Connection (101)
- Planning (102)
- Build (103)
- Money (104)
- Scale (105)
- 4 Updates (106)
Which stage are you in?
We are actively adjusting this roadmap based on your feedback. Could you answer these 3 quick questions in the comments below?
- Which stage are you in?
- What does it feel like where you are?
- What step is next for you?
Show Notes
Product/market fit – Wikipedia
Why 16% of Customers Wouldn’t Recommend Fizzle (and How We Found Out)
The Startup Pyramid – Sean Ellis
The Multiple Hats of the Solopreneur (FS062)
Amazon.com: Jackson’s Honest Sea Salt Potato Chips Made with Coconut Oil
Miranda Sings Is Really Helping Jerry Seinfeld With His Career
Watch Porn Stars: Moet & Chandon Champagne From Saturday Night Live – NBC.com:
Learn how to set goals that actually stick!
The Top 10 Mistakes in Online Business
Every week we talk with entrepreneurs. We talk about what’s working and what isn’t. We talk about successes and failures. We spend time with complete newbies, seasoned veterans, and everything in between.
One topic that comes up over and over again with both groups is mistakes made in starting businesses. Newbies love to learn about mistakes so they can avoid them. Veterans love to talk about what they wish they had known when starting out.
These conversations have been fascinating, so we compiled a list of the 10 mistakes we hear most often into a nifty lil' guide. Get the 10 Most Common Mistakes in Starting an Online Business here »
1. Money Stage.
2. I am making some money, but with a part time job it’s hard to get to the “freedom number”. I’m not a risk taker and it is definitely holding me back. I’d love to hear your thoughts on taking risks. Also, as a service provider (professional organizer) in the Real World, client work takes a lot of time. I like it and I’m not planning to become an 100 % online entrepreneur yet, partly because I still have so much to learn and working closely with customers is very valuable for me.
3. I’d say pick the right metrics and start tracking them. I also think that as a service provider it is possible for me to scale by growing my team. Not necessarily by hiring but collaboration or sort of franchising my concepts and workshops. Also in the last stage would be adding products and services.
What comes after stage 6? is also an interesting question. Automation? Of course, that should be thought about all along so you can leave running the business in other people’s hands while fishing in Mexico :)
Every stage or step should be celebrated properly.
Great answers, Eveliina. Thanks so much for answering the 3 questions!
I’m definitely not in the Money stage yet. I realize, after listening to all 6 of the podcasts in the Small Business Roadmap series, that I have been wandering around in a virtual game of Chutes and Ladders (see photo if you don’t know what the heck I’m talking about): I haven’t been able to understand what the entrepreneurial landscape looks like from above. That has made it REALLY hard to see what to do or where I should be trying to go. This series is *so* helpful for that. I feel like I just got a view of the big picture, and I know I can go back here and have another look whenever I feel lost about where I’m supposed to be heading next. THANKS, guys!
“I haven’t been able to understand what the entrepreneurial landscape looks like from above. […] This series is *so* helpful for that.” That’s really awesome to hear.
Chutes and ladders is a great metaphor for this, Bonnie.
Money stage. I’m somewhere toward the end of that stage, which is exciting- I would LOVE a list of recommended leaders to follow (book authors or podcasters, for example) who can help us through these final two stages. I feel like there are a lot of people, for example, teaching why to create an email list and some 101 email marketing stuff, but I have no idea where to turn for more advanced email marketing- using funnels and really leveraging a decent list, for example. Would love to know who you guys are learning from in your own progress through the Scale phase. You guys are awesome! Thanks for this series! :)
Thanks for the kind words, Sarah.
As to the advanced email stuff, stay tuned. We’re concocting things now behind the scenes for a new course on that very subject. In the mean time, check out Brennan Dunn: http://doubleyourfreelancing.com/
Fizzle Fellas, this is great. These shows are exactly what I needed.
It feels like, over the years, I’ve had a go at lots of things you suggest in the first five of the six shows…but have left a series of holes on my way through or not seen any of them through to their natural conclusion.
So the clarity that the roadmap is giving me (and not just in the ‘Clarity’ episode) is allowing me to do that – with results that feel amazing to me because I know, as I say, this is what I needed.
If you’re a Fizzler, you can see what I’ve done this morning as a result of listening and re-listening to the shows (five-and-a-half of them, anyway) in my Progress Log. If you’re a non-Fizzler, I suggest you sign up – and not just to read my Progress Log ;-)
Thanks, guys!
Paul
http://fizzle.co/forums/index.php?/topic/12419-progress-log-paul-parry/
Awesome, Paul. Great stuff.
“If someone had told me I could keep my big vision, but for my ***first*** product I really needed to focus on a specific group of people with a definite want or pain […] I would have made progress a lot faster.” Loved this.
And yes, this — “I want to scale to a degree but I don’t want to lose the personal interaction” — is a common challenge, and one you get to be artful about.
Great series, guys! Totally recommending this to people. My attempt at answering your questions (in hopes that it’s helpful):
1. I’m somewhere towards the end of Money or beginning of Scale. I have fairly consistent income that’s more than enough to live on, but it’s mostly from building up my freelance writing business very quickly. So now, I’m looking at my workload (which doesn’t always involve my favoritest things) and trying to figure out how to scale this a little better – part of the reason my income is so consistent is because I write a crazypants amount (I tracked and in between client writing + my writing in March, I wrote close to 30k words, BEFORE you count in the 10-15k words of editing on my novel). I’m not sure how sustainable that is over the long term (my elbows and wrists are starting to protest) and if I’m totally honest, not all of the writing I’m doing is close to my heart or very fulfilling.
2. A weird mix of gratifying and a little frustrating. I’m super grateful to be at this point in my business. This is sort of self employment 2.0 for me, because I did freelancing for a few years, got SUPER burned out at the end of 2013, took a job and worked it for 5-6 months and then went back to freelancing and have had a much easier go of things this time around. So I know how much it sucks and how stressful it is to be floundering around pre-Money stages (and in Clarity, which is where I was probably stuck FOREVA before). But I’d really like to be working at a slower pace–I just took two weeks off for the first time in years and on the other side of that I can see how burned out I was and how breakneck my current work-pace is–and working on more creatively fulfilling things.
3. Probably a three pronged strategy of:
–scaling up my non-freelance writing income via products/classes/other income streams (looks like it’s time to look at product market fit and review customer acquisition)
–raising my freelance rates
–branching out so that I’m not writing in such a super-narrow niche (there’s only so many times you can type the words “content marketing” before you feel like you’re just yelling gibberish into the void)
Hey guys. First I want to say this was one of the greatest series I’ve ever listen to on any podcast show. You guys are amazing thank you so much for what you do here. I am not a fizzler yet but I do plan on joining later this year and I’m really looking forward to it.
After hearing all six stages it feels like and looks like I am in multiple states right now. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but that’s where I am in some respects in still in the clarifying stage, but more so I am redefining and narrowing down who I want to serve and trying to be as specific as possible. I feel as though this may be something I continue to do for a while in my business to make sure I find my people.
I’m in the planning stage as well, planning out what specific problem I want to solve and more so researching competition.
I’m also in the connecting stage answering questions in quora and reddit and talking to other bloggers and building relationships for possible guest blogging.
I’m also in build stage, building my blog and community, setting up social media and at this point brainstorming for a minimum viable product.
I’m somewhat wondering if being in different stages is ok. I assume it is, but I’d love to get feedback from you guys. Should I focus on finishing each stage before moving forward?
It feels exciting even though I feel like I’m all over the map, to be where I am. It also is very scary. I still have some doubts and fears as to wether or not I’m doing the right thing and on the right track.
I feel like the build stage will take a good while, and ultimately making my first dollar.
I’m down for the ride, but it’s scary as hell.
Ok, I wanted to comment a few days ago but I hadn’t been able to finish the final episode until this morning.
Firstly, great job. I have enjoyed every single one of these roadmap episodes.
To answer your feedback questions:
1) Which stage are you in? This is actually fairly hard for me to nail down (which may be an indicator, or I’m just bad at picking). I started a blog to give guidance and tools to people, who like me feel they are meant for more than 9 to 5 grinding. People who have the desire and motivation to start doing something in their life (whatever that may be) but need some guidance, advice, and a push to move forward. I am not creating a product or selling any courses (yet). So knowing where I am in my current state feels like a mish-mash. Based on your business archetypes (also awesome) I am combination of The Thought Leader and The Coach. All that being said, I would say I am paddling back and forth between clarity and connection.
2) What does it feel like where you are? Honestly, pretty good. I really enjoy what I am putting into the world. I like having a place to put my experience and ideas in a place where it may help someone dealing with the same problem. If I were to apply
this question to building a business then I think I would need to double back
and see if I have a good product market fit for the people I am trying to reach
(probably with courses and e-books). However, when that does happen I will use
Chase’s analogy of lifting a weight one inch and seeing if the other side rises
by twelve. Perfect description of helping to notice your product market fit.
3) What step is next for you? To keep building personal connections and working hard to put out quality material. I am new to the game of blogging and trying to pursue an income that can sustain my family outside of a 9 to 5. And I know that just because this world is new to me doesn’t mean that I can’t reach that goal, but it does mean that I want it to be genuine. I want the work, the quality, and audience to be truthful. And that means honing my voice, focusing on my audience, and making sure there is a need for what I am doing.
Keep up the awesome work and I look forward to see what comes from all the feedback.
Hey Guys!!!
I’m in the Connection Stage. Actually I wasasd in the Planning Stage and after listening to your Roadmap series I realized I skipped a step. So back to Connection I go!!!
I feel grounded and love what your Roadmap is providing for me.
Love what you guys do . . . keep up the good work!!
Man I LOVE this podcast!!
1. In the Clarity phase, recently joined Fizzle and I cannot wait to get clarity on a business I care about.
2. What does it feel like? Intimidating, daunting, but yet exhilarating at the same time!
3. Just going to take it day by day, and make sure I’m taking action and following the amazing guides/training you provide inside Fizzle.
Keep up the amazing work!
Hey guys,
So here is my deal:
I am not normally able to absorb all of the content you guys dish out and just recently rediscovered you guys.
I listened to steps 1-6.
What I now know: I don’t know jack shit and am completely clueless. Think lost-child-wandering-in-the-wilderness-looking-for-bread-crumbs-clueless.
I’ve dabbled in Mixergy here and there and gained a lot of insight but I still find that the disconnect is huge. I still really don’t know how to get started and everything is so nebulous.
I have an idea that I would like to explore and test but I think, in spite of that, I need to start over in the clarity stage…
As someone who is earning an MBA and feeling like it doesn’t really teach you much in the ways of starting a business so much as in working in one, I feel pretty lost and just hoping that one day, maybe one day, I am going to accomplish something.
It’s pretty overwhelming… and I’m 28 so I feel like the clock is majorly ticking away… probably at an accelerated rate..
So, yeah, that’s what’s up.
Cheers!