10 Things That Change When You Stop Bootstrapping

KRISTEN KOH GOLDSTEIN FOUNDER CEO / SCALUS

BACKGROUND BEEN A PART OF NUMEROUS SUCCESSFUL START-UPS Sold to Sold to Bootstrapped to Founded Scalus Shopping.com Tibco $3M in 18 months in 2014 as a / eBay (1999) (2010) and raise $10M spinout of from Tier 1 VCs BackOps

THE 10 THINGS THAT CHANGE WHEN YOU STOP BOOTSTRAPPING 1 Complexity explodes exponentially when focus expands from building a product to building a company BEFORE NOW 1. People 1. Product 2. Product ALL 3 “P”S 2. People NEED TO BE IN SYNC 3. Process 3. Process

THE 10 THINGS THAT CHANGE WHEN YOU STOP BOOTSTRAPPING 2 Mythical man month is real— 1. People As you add people, building the company takes longer 2. Product 3. Process FEEL EXTREME PRESSURE TO RECRUIT QUICKLY MUST RESIST

THE 10 THINGS THAT CHANGE WHEN YOU STOP BOOTSTRAPPING 3 As CEO, your second (or third) full-time job as 1. People Recruiter starts immediately and lasts forever 2. Product 3. Process HIRE SLOW,
 FIRE FAST HIRING OUTSIDE VS. 
 INSIDE CIRCLE

THE 10 THINGS THAT CHANGE WHEN YOU STOP BOOTSTRAPPING 4 As hard as you try to prevent it, culture will change as 1. People you grow and battle rhythm becomes harder to maintain 2. Product 3. Process COMPANY CULTURE FAMILY VS. VILLAGE

THE 10 THINGS THAT CHANGE WHEN YOU STOP BOOTSTRAPPING 5 Ability to discern bus drivers disguised as bus 1. People builders will make or break your company 2. Product 3. Process Builders Playing Offense Drivers Playing Defense SLOW CREEP INVISIBLE TIPPING 
 POINT Output Focused (Results) Input Focused (Politics)

THE 10 THINGS THAT CHANGE WHEN YOU STOP BOOTSTRAPPING Without conscious deliberate change, 6 the founding team risks becoming micro managers 1. People that destroys the company from within
 2. Product 3. Process FULL STACK AGILITY VS. REPEATABILITY

THE 10 THINGS THAT CHANGE WHEN YOU STOP BOOTSTRAPPING 7 You may be tempted to invite more 1. People hierarchy than necessary 2. Product 3. Process Tracking bottlenecks and issues becomes 
 a larger pain

THE 10 THINGS THAT CHANGE WHEN YOU STOP BOOTSTRAPPING Helping your people see the big picture must 1. People 8 transition from a 1:1 experience to one of systematic 2. Product scale and consistency 3. Process If your team can’t see the big picture, they will not execute well against it

THE 10 THINGS THAT CHANGE WHEN YOU STOP BOOTSTRAPPING The tension between empowering the 1. People 9 team against the chaos of everyone 2. Product determining ‘the how’ will consume you 3. Process RIGID ORDER FLEXIBLE 
 EMPOWERMENT The people doing the work have the best idea of how it should be done

THE 10 THINGS THAT CHANGE WHEN YOU STOP BOOTSTRAPPING 10 Scale is actually more about consistent product or service 1. People delivery rather than quality of product or service delivery. 2. Product 3. Process Rinse Repeat Consistency = Repeatability = Success Rinse Repeat

THANK YOU AND Q&A The 10 Things That Change When You Stop 
 Bootstrapping (and Raise 10M) KRISTEN KOH GOLDSTEIN FOUNDER CEO / SCALUS @kristenkoh