Author: Greg Mitchell

Getting to the next level requires next level talent.

Two startup transactions were front and center at PECAP’s May meetup. During the meeting, Ragi Burhum announced the sale of AmigoCloud, and Alain Elias, president of PECAP, shared the Q1 report, highlighting Krealo’s investment in Culqi.

A common thread in both startups is the founders’ superpower of hiring and retaining talent. Ragi, at AmigoCloud, and Amparo Nalvarte and Nicolas di Pace, of Culqi, achieved success by building a supporting cast of key contributors.

Faces behind the founders:

Diego Bartra, Head of Professional Services, AmigoCloud: Began his career at Tekton Labs then led programs at Startup Peru. Graduate of Universidad de Pacifico.

Pierina Salinas, Head of Operations, AmigoCloud: Previously part of the founding team at UTEC Ventures. Graduate of Universidad de Lima.

Rodrigo Neira, CFO, Culqi: Previously held impactful positions at Belcorp and Chemonics International. Graduate of Universidad de Piura.

William Muro, CTO, Culqi: Five years building product at Culqi following graduation from Universidad Tecnológica del Perú.

The founders of these startups will be the first to give credit to these and other team members that played a key role in getting to the finish line. While founders dedicate time almost exclusively to the transaction, the rest of the team helps out and at the same time ensures the startup continues to deliver results.

AmigoCloud and Culqi are still growing and writing their stories. The next level of talent, below the founders, will become an increasingly important part of future success.

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Check out the Q1 2019 PECAP Report here.

If you are a founder you have likely faced the dreaded scale question: Is this scalable? After asking the question myself, I realized that I didn’t know what it meant. I am still trying to figure out.

Here are some steps to answer the question:

1. Ask the person to clarify the question, and determine whether they are thinking about scale in a specific way.
2. Say you are not focused on scale right now. You are doing things that don’t scale on purpose.
3. Use specific examples of small wins, when possible with a time dimension: i. Revenue is growing, even when number of people on the team doesn’t, ii. Revenue has been achieved in another city or country without having a local team, iii. Sales cycle has decreased due to streamlined processes, iv. Customers are coming back to buy more often, v. A new sales channel results in reaching more clients with the same effort, vi. You have resold existing software or content to another customer
4. Use benchmarks of successful startups in your industry or with a similar business model and talk about how they have grown.
5. Walk through a scenario of how your startup could grow over time. Answer the questions: “how does this get really big?” or “what does this look like in an optimal case?” This will show investors you are thinking big and also have an idea how to get there.

One way to think about scale is exerting less effort to achieve the same or more value over time.  Start analyzing your business model and have conversations with investors and advisors about how to grow your business in a non-linear way.