Written by our Co-Founder & Master Dieuwke Hoogland
After the 1st half of 2021 – and heading towards an even better 2nd half – it’s time to reflect and share some findings and insights on our work at Masters of Scale for international scaling founders. Some outcomes were more or less expected, some are more remarkable.
Too Much Focus on ‘Promising High Flyers’
There’s a tendency in the ecosystem to focus any support towards acceleration and growth of a smaller group of ‘promising high flyers’. They more easily attract funding, governmental local backing, consultancy, and coaching.
However, at Masters of Scale we see strong acceleration and improved go-to market strategies after running a project with companies that are more ‘under the radar’ and need a trained eye to see its potential.
Our Conclusion: Building strategies and funding plans by adding experienced entrepreneurs and their networks can drastically accelerate scaleups.
Our Scaling Readiness Assessment is Very Valuable
Masters of Scale supports companies who encounter some ‘challenges’ on their route to accelerated scaling. Identifying these challenges with our Scaling Readiness Assessment (SRA) has been a great way for founders and Masters together to find scaling challenges and ways to help solve these. After receiving their SRA score and our recommendations, 75% of the companies signed up for a follow-up project with Masters of Scale.
Our Conclusion: Our Scaling Readiness Assessment is a great audit tool for our scaleups. The outcome and our recommendations bring new insights and inspiration for founder teams.
Alignment of Investors is Crucial
The results of our modules like ‘Scaling Strategy’ and ‘Scaling Funding’ are more effective if the companies’ investors are aligned with and in support of the goal of our project. They are more likely to successfully implement the proposed strategic steps.
Our Conclusion: Introduce investor-shareholders at the start of the project to the Masters of Scale organization and to the strategies they use for accelerating portfolio companies.
Education on International Landscape Needed
Scaling companies tend to focus their pitch decks on local investors and local markets and lack a thorough study of what drives international investors, markets and customers.
Our Conclusion: Our international Masters educate the scaling founders on investor/customer cultures, habits and requirements for entering worldwide markets.
International Expansion Important for Scaling
Working with our scaleups we see they hardly consider relocating one of the founders to potential large markets and supportive ecosystems that could better serve the company’s goals. Maybe Singapore, Berlin or Boston may be a better choice for your product or service and being physically present in that ecosystem will help you build your network faster.
Our Conclusion: Systematically gather information to find the best location to develop, market and sell your product/service and integrate it in your scaling strategy.
Want to learn more about Masters of Scale? Send us an email at hello@mastersofscale.nl.