Our
Case Studies
European Family Office Investment Opportunity
Background
Our client was a serial angel investor with no industry knowledge. They were assessing whether to invest in a scale-up of 20 people who wanted to set up a secondary market in Europe. We helped them assess the opportunity leading to a £500K investment in the business.
Challenge
When investing in a scale-up you often invest due to the likability and salesmanship of the founders. With this type of investment, the risks include: ​​​​​
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Hiring the right people
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Setting up an efficient infrastructure
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Expanding leadership to the wider team
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Accessing new markets
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Finding a repeatable sales model, beyond the founders
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The key to mitigating these is to have a leadership team that is able to identify the priorities that need to be addressed with regular, transparent communications between the board and founders.
Solution
We interviewed all board members & investors, uncovering key challenges that were experienced by several board members. Our interview process also allowed us to understand the key frustrations and existing level of understanding about business performance, which together caused friction after each board meeting.
Our Impact
Software Scaleup - Recruitment Drive and Team Retention
Background
All existing employees were hired through personal contacts and referrals. However, with a plan a growth plan including a new market entry, the existing headcount of 30 people had to be expanded rapidly. The current HR function was outsourced to a consultant two days per week and their focus was on housekeeping in the HR platform.
Challenge
An excellent HR function is a necessity within a scale-up, as finding the right people and retaining them is not an easy task. Within a six-month period, our client had "lost as many people as they had hired". This seems to be a pattern across two particular departments. With aggressive revenue goals and a planned market entry, we had to address the following:
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The overall time and cost to fill roles, as it was taking over four months
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The length of the recruitment process, because good candidates were being snapped up by competitors
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Retaining successful candidates, preventing those that were hired from leaving.
Solution
Within three months, management's key priorities were identified and the following was executed:
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A full time dedicated HR function was onboarded
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An up to date company handbook was created and disseminated amongst staff
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Clear job descriptions for all employees were developed, so each employee knew their performance goals
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A recruitment process was developed, involving additional managers and more peer to peer involvement
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A thorough onboarding plan with checkpoints and transparency on areas of improvement for both individuals and managers was developed
Our Impact
Optimising margin for a professional services business
Background
After 12 months of gathering initial market fit, our client, a growing leader in indoor air quality certifications, had a goal to become the dominant provider in the UK. To do this they knew they needed to significantly increase the number of customers they service concurrently and keep their delivery team as lean as possible.
Challenge
After gaining initial traction as a startup, the next step is rapidly acquiring more customers to build your market position before other competitors catch on. However, this often needs to be done without significantly increasing headcount as your business is very unlikely to be profitable yet. It’s also likely that many of your early processes will have many areas for improvements as an efficient and streamlined process is hard to achieve from day one because you often learn as you go and many people in your team wear multiple hats. Finding ways to improve these core processes is fundamental to strengthening your unit economics, delivering a better customer experience and preparing for your next pitch.
In this case, there were several administrative tasks increasing the time it took to deliver certifications:
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Specialised staff were creating new documents for each certification and report
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Data input was being manually added retrieved for each certification
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Significant time was spent chasing information, by those not directly involved in the delivery process, as information was dispersed throughout the team
Solution
Working with the CEO, delivery team and certification scientists, we mapped the full process and implemented several improvements:
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We implemented automation tools to automatically create new, pre-populated internal documents required for delivery
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We standardised several templates, making it easier to input data in an agreed format and minimising the opportunities for error.
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We consolidated project data into a single system instead of the two the team previously used. By migrating the team over to one tool, we made it significantly easier to find project information and reduce the number of systems to update