The 12 Warning Signs of Startup Success

Leadership and growth expert Kirk Dando sheds light on 12 signs your growing company is falling victim to the very thing you’ve been working so hard for — success.

As a company scales, it always experiences subtle but very troubling growing pains. Left alone or ignored, these growing pains can (and do) turn into business train wrecks. I call these pains the “12 Warning Signs of Success.” And as you might expect, these growth tremors are amplified during rapid growth.
In its haste to maintain growth, leadership often compounds the situation, fixing its gaze outward on the environment and ahead toward the future, hoping perhaps that better product design and increased sales head count will provide the organization with the impetus it needs to go to the next level of performance.
But what leaders so typically underestimate and overlook are the overly obvious and embarrassingly simple repairs needed to mature, stabilize, and scale.

The irony is, nothing kills faster than success, and only successful companies get to experience these Warning Signs:
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So What, Now What?

Predicting problems before they show up in the results is every leader’s responsibility. Take time to sit down with your team and board of directors, and ask them if they think any of these 12 Warning Signs of Success are present in your organization. Be the leader your organization needs and prepare for a high growth year — without all the drama.
Image by Thomas Hawk