Page 105 - INC Magazine-November 2018
P. 105

Inc. 5000 InSIGHTS
               When did you knoW you hen did you knoW you
               W
               n n
               needed a reorg?eeded a reorg?eeded a reorg?

                advice from the founders of america’s fastest-growing private companies.  As toLd to KAte RocKwood

               h                 h
               “I started the Gold-  “The engineering
               man Sachs 10,000   team came to us
               Small Businesses   with ideas to
               program, and it   improve the user
               stressed that we   experience of our
               had to work on our   website. But we’re
               business, not in it.   not tech experts;
               But that felt impos-  we couldn’t quickly
               sible! We’d schedule   assess which ideas
               strategy meetings,   were phenomenal.
               and they’d get    That’s when it was
               crowded out by    clear we needed
               tedious tasks. I’m a   to reorg.”
               control freak, but    —
               as we grew, there   amy norman
               just weren’t enough   Co-founder and
                                 co-CEO,
               hours in the day.    Little Passports
               We finally reorged   (consumer products
               into two teams,    and services)
               with two managers    2018 Rank No. 1,387
               who report up to    GRowth 341%
                                 Revenue $23.6 MILLIoN
               the co-founders.”
               —
               BetSy mikeSell    h
               Co-founder and CEO,
               Beddy’s (consumer    “People started
               products and services)  asking things like:
               2018 Rank No. 270  ‘Who do I request
               GRowth 1,817%     time off from?’ and
               Revenue $4.8 MILLIoN  ‘Who’s my direct
                                 report?’ and ‘Who’s
               h                 on my team?’ And
                                 they were frustrated
                “Staff members   that I didn’t have
               didn’t want to come   immediate answers.
               to me first, but they   It was hindering our
               didn’t have anyone   culture, and that
               else to go to when    meant it was time
               a client requested   to change.”
               something out     —
               of scope. So teams   kory StevenS
               were consistently   Co-founder and CEO,
               delivering more   Taft (consumer
                                 products and services)
               work than we were   2018 Rank No. 56
               paid to do. Now    GRowth 4,795%
               that we have a clear   Revenue $5.7 MILLIoN
               hierarchy, people
               aren’t grinding out
               that extra work or
               sweeping it under
               the rug.”            h
               —
               ali grant           “when we didn’t have much staff, everyone naturally
               Founder and CEO,
               Be Social            did a bit of everything. we reached our breaking
               (advertising and
               marketing)           point during our busiest season last year, when I saw
               2018 Rank No. 542
               GRowth 926%          leader ship handling customer calls. I realized I could
               Revenue $3.5 MILLIoN
                                    hire someone a lot less expensive for the small tasks
                                    while those leaders helped grow the business—but
                                    only if we gave people clear roles to own.”
               Rankings and data
               are taken from the   —
               2018 Inc. 5000:      michael moran
               Growth is calculated   Founder and CEO, Private Label Extensions (consumer products and services)
               from 2014 to 2017;
               revenue is from 2017.  2018 Rank No. 278  GRowth 1,776%  Revenue $4.2 MILLIoN

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