Mark Koh, CEO of Supahands, reflected on his role in growing the company into what it is today with Mike Dias, CEO of ScaleUp Valley.
Read on to see how you can approach scaling challenges the same way they do.
What has been Supahands’ scaling journey so far? Including your own personal journey with the company.
It has been a huge learning curve, both for myself and the team. I have had to level up my own thinking to keep thinking bigger and faster, and there was not a single day that goes by where I am not learning something new.
The last quarter has involved major steps in chasing high-quality growth, which has been fun and challenging. It required a lot of experimentation, micro pivots and failing fast. We were moving so quickly (having new additions to the team while our active SupaAgent pool grew by over three times in a quarter) that many things started to “break” such as our infrastructure and our organisational structure.
It has not been easy as many of us were pushed mentally and emotionally, but that is just the thrill of being in a fast-growing tech company is like. A bigger team will inevitably mean more structures and processes in place.
A big initiative of mine is to work on culture and hiring – hiring better, hiring faster. Part of that stems from a lot of pressure from my team (which I highly encourage) so that I become a greater, more inspirational leader. They force me to keep improving the wellbeing of the company’s culture, values, and environment.
As the CEO, what are the biggest challenges you face when growing and aligning your team?
Communication. How do I ensure that everyone in the team is getting the same and right information? How do I keep everyone aligned with the mission and drivers for growth as the company grows? How do we ensure that everyone moves at the same cadence to switch and adapt when necessary?
Information sharing. How much is too much when it comes to sharing information? Do we opt for radical transparency or selective sharing? It’s a constant battle in my mind, especially as the flow of information gets trickier and the business gets more complex.
Also Read: Human-powered training data provider Supahands raises Series A funding
Hiring for speed and quality. The culture morphs as we grow. The people we hire today will not be the same as the people we would have hired four years ago when we first started. Do we want to sacrifice certain values for skills? We do not do this now, but I would be lying if I said that I have not done that before. It is tempting to do so because we just need to get them on board as soon as possible – but we pay for it in more challenges later on.
How do you understand the structure and mission of your company and what measures do you have in place to ensure that all levels of the company are on the same page?
We use the one-page strategic plan by Verne Harnish. It is still new to us and we like that we can constantly iterate it. We incorporate this into our onboarding process for new starters and also keep it fresh in the team’s memory by communicating it through our bi-monthly company-wide meetings. We are careful that we are spending time ensuring that newcomers feel welcomed and included in our culture, mission, and mindset.
Hiring is one of the top challenges that leadership teams experience. What is your approach to hiring?
I still play a very active role in hiring, especially for senior, managerial and leadership roles. It is important that we do not hire just for skills, but also culture fit and in accordance with our values. Leaders need to be inspirational people, who are and can be mentors to not just their immediate team but to others too.
We take our time to hire the right people, putting candidates through multiple rounds of technical and cultural interviews that include people from different departments. This is so we can ensure that we get a good 360 view of the candidate.
It is important to us that we hire motivated thinkers who believe in the mission and vision of the company. They also need to be able to adapt and learn quickly. All of these components fit into the nature of what Supahands is doing in an ecosystem that is constantly moving and evolving.
What are your tips for ensuring strong communication within your company?
Town Hall is an all-hands meeting that takes place once a month. Its main goal is to ensure alignment and consistency in the mission across the organisation.
Drumbeat also takes place once a month and is a shorter, more concise version of Town Hall. Think of it as a 30-minute session for all teams to catch up on what everyone else is up to.
I also send out a weekly “Top of Mind” email to the entire company so that everyone knows what is on top of the mind for me and the leadership team.
All of our teams have either daily or weekly huddles so information flows freely among direct team members.
We do a lot to ensure that the company is as transparent as possible, sharing information willingly and maintaining a culture of over-communicating.
Is there something that you have learned through the process that you wish you knew before?
Focus is the key to growth. Entrepreneurs tend to be a creative, visionary bunch and have a tendency to want to do everything. This overcomplicates the process of building a great company.
Although this was repeated to me many times by different mentors, it only really stuck when I started seeing the results of focusing on the business. We have been through multiple iterations of narrowing our focus, and I am now one of the key drivers of “focus” at Supahands.
—
Editor’s note: e27 publishes relevant guest contributions from the community. Share your honest opinions and expert knowledge by submitting your content here.
Join our e27 Telegram group here, or like e27 Facebook page here.
Image credit: Razvan Chisu on Unsplash
The post Riding the learning curve with the CEO of Supahands appeared first on e27.