So, how can an organization prepare for this meteoric rise?
Iterate on your architecture
The way most apps evolve is by starting with a monolith, as it is simple to develop, test and deploy. Once the business model has been established and the customer base begins to grow, it’s time to shift to a microservices architecture. However, migrating a large monolithic app to a microservices architecture is a daunting task and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.
To successfully migrate, break the problem down into two parts. As the first step, involve the product and engineering department and translate business goals into a domain model. When introducing new entities in this domain model, implement them as separate services. Second, incrementally extract groups of related entities out of the monolith and convert them into services. Focus on migrating complex entities first as this will provide the highest returns on investment.
Leverage automation
Manual processes are people-intensive and make it difficult to scale as companies grow. This is where automation comes in. While the transition does increase costs and affects productivity in the short run as the team acclimates to the new workflow, it pays handsome dividends in the long term by saving time and effort. Automating tasks, like manual data entry frees up time to focus on high-value work, close leads quickly and spend less time correcting typos, miscounts and other human errors. Similarly, customer support chatbots resolve most queries without human interference.
Speed over perfection
For startups, quick iteration is an imperative as opposed to waiting for the perfect product or service, which can allow nimble competitors to get ahead in the game. This approach calls for a fine balance between moving fast and building a scalable product.
Retain and grow exceptional talent
A lot of emphasis is (rightly) placed on hiring great talent—a combination of the right skills, aptitude, and culture fit. It’s equally important to ensure that the hired talent stays with the company, which has a compounding effect on its growth. Conversely, high churn is costly as departing employees frequently need to be replaced.
Employee retention can be strengthened by offering a healthy and balanced work environment, adequate mentorship and challenging opportunities.
Encourage an ownership mindset
Employees who think like entrepreneurs add immense value to any organization. Imagine what your company could achieve if every person was self-motivated and concentrated all of their efforts on making the firm successful, knowing it would make them successful as well. A powerful formula to keep people motivated is to speak with them about the company’s values and goals on a regular basis, solicit their thoughts, ask them to set their own goals, and make them feel valued.
People nowadays expect their leaders to be transparent; they want to know how their firm makes decisions and how those decisions affect them, their customers, and society as a whole. Transparency with your employees also helps them make better business decisions.
Employee stock option plans go a long way in fostering an ownership mindset; employees understand that long-term wealth creation is linked to how well their company performs.
Take a human-centric approach to introduce new technologies
In the beginning, startups have lean operations and are focused on quickly launching the product and acquiring customers. This usually leads to running a mishmash of off-the-shelf software and homegrown solutions. But as the organization’s scale grows, existing technologies become inefficient, necessitating a replacement with the right tech stack.
An open culture encourages constructive discussions. To be effective, these constructive discussions require two-way communication and participation from everyone. If a company is implementing considerable technological changes, for example, it’s a good idea to factor in the opinions and comments of every member of the tech team, regardless of their designation.
Additionally, training the team is essential—technology can only drive real change if the team is leveraging it effectively.
Sanjeev Barnwal is founder and CTO of Meesho.
