Company Changes Every Time It Doubles in Size
By Derek Neighbors on July 29, 2022
I have noticed a few patterns in consulting for a large number of companies of various sizes.
- They fundamentally change their dynamics roughly everytime they double in size. Each doubling puts stress on the culture and requires different levels of presence and leadership to keep alignment towards a vision.
- Founders usually stall at about $40 -$75 million in revenue or at 150 - 250 employees. The chemical make up and traits that make founders great at executing to get an idea into the market tend to be the same traits and personality that prevent scalability. This is why so many founders replace themselves at some point. It is rare for the original founder to ride the company to the finish line. If they stay, they have to change drastically. Even Steve Jobs had to step away from Apple in order to learn what it takes. Sergey and Larry abdicated at Google. Zuckerburg at Facebook is an oddity as was Gates at Microsoft.
