I have the feeling that new ventures (why ’software organizations?’ I don’t know, it was all marketing) have to go through 5 major challenging and exciting times to be all set to play in the global league.

1. Partner with the right people

If you can do it alone (guts + will to face the ‘lonesome cowboy’ syndrom + both technical and sales skills) do it, but it is very likely that you can’t. How many people (2, 3, 4) on board? Which sort of people? If you don’t partner with them, how can you attract them later with an appropriate package (equity? stock options? salary? etc.)?

2. Early days: each time you hire one person, you need to change the entire organization

Indeed, I believe it is at least as complex to grow from 2 to 4 employees and then from 4 to 8 people, to 16, to 32, etc. than from 40,000 to 80,000 heads.

3. Hire and empower middle managers

I believe one single person may directly manage between 5 and 7 people max. So say you are 3 founders, you’ll need to introduce middle managers as soon as you hit 25 employees or so. Dude, this looks really complicated to me: how can you attract and retain people should be at least as smart as you (hiring top guns is critical at this stage of development) and still keep control of what’s going on on the deck?

4. Open the first business operations office abroad

Do it wrong and it’s very likely that going global will take much more time than predicted. Do it right and your DNA will be printed with the ‘global mindset’ stamp once and for all. Business Objects for instance opened a sales office in California a couple weeks after starting product development in Levallois, near Paris. I believe one way to open business operations abroad is to get a young smart ass aboard, ask her/him to put some of her/his own money against equity of the holding company, go for 20% fixed / 80% bonus salary and set ambitious commitments. Of course, there exist many different ways to open sales offices abroad. But again: I believe succeeding the first time is critical to a healthy global development of the company.

5. Introduction of processes and redtape that will kick your best talents out

Once the company has grown big (you made it!), your shareholders will require that your organization shifts to a reactive, startup sort of model to something that looks like a real corporation. It’s usually a good move for the company, that is often perceived as evil by these young and bright young managers you had recruited years ago. Remember? Your first middle managers? These will most often depart when you start introducing formal workflows and processes in your structure as initiative and innovation can only be constrained (that’s what is currently happening to Google, which is no startup anymore but has turned to a large ‘classical’ corporation). My point is that you’re never going to replace them: it’s very high to hire up when you grow big. At some point, the level of the people you hire decreases the overall level. Or put it that way: the derivative of the skill and drive curve will turn negative. The day you’ll bring in an HR person, it means you’ve passed the inflexion point: it’s the beginning of the end

Reading this post again before pushing the ‘publish’ button, I feel that I’ve smoked too much or so. But actually, although it may appear unclear, I believe in everything I wrote. From my humble view point, it remains extremely theoretical so I really can’t figure out whether what I’m saying is relevant or irrelevant. Feel free to share if you’ve gone through one or several of these organizational challenges (if it’s private information, then let’s go for a beer or coffee together: I can’t be more interested by any other topic than this one: ‘managing growth’).