Founders Key to Lasting Business Growth
The UK is experiencing a record surge in entrepreneurial ambition, with 36% of working-age adults either starting a business or planning to do so. However, only 38% of businesses launched in 2019 survived the first five years, highlighting the challenges of growing a business.
From Founder-Driven to Scalable Growth
Starting a business and growing it are two fundamentally different tasks. The first requires an idea and energy, while the second requires a system that does not exist at the beginning. I know this from personal experience, having taken 16 years to grow my business to 116 branches in 25 countries.
After a fast start, the business slowed down for a long time, with some years seeing only one or two new branches. The problem was not the market or demand, but the fact that the business did not move forward without my involvement. This is a common challenge for founders, who often become the bottleneck in their business.
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The Bottleneck of Founder Dependence
A business that depends on one person or a few strong employees can deliver solid results in the early stages, but as it grows, every new step of growth only increases the burden on them. This dependency turns into a limitation, making it difficult for the business to scale. CEOs of public companies spend 39% of their time on short‑term matters, while leaders of private companies spend 51%, highlighting the need for a system that can support growth.
For a founder of a business with 20 to 50 people, support is often missing, and they have to personally look for clients, supervise employees, fix mistakes, and try to think about growth. This can lead to a situation where the founder feels like a performer in a circus act, spinning plates on thin sticks, and if they stop, the business would stop too.
Standard Solutions Do Not Deliver Results
Defining how everything should work, running training sessions, setting up mentoring, and regularly checking knowledge may seem like an obvious solution. However, the most valuable knowledge in a company is also the hardest to formalise, and experienced employees may not be motivated to share what they know. Training sessions can deliver information, but without practical reinforcement, what is heard is quickly forgotten.
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The line between a rule and a system lies in the fact that a rule explains how you should act, while a system ensures that the required action becomes part of the daily process, rather than depending on memory, discipline, or a person’s mood.
As the company grows, the system should be strengthened with automated tools, which can include AI for analyzing candidate profiles. This can help to ensure that the business can scale without the founder, and that the system can support growth, even when the founder is not directly involved. They can use business insights to make informed decisions.
