BD #37 - Growing 10X in 12 months, my top 5 lessons

Here are my core learnings from expanding my business more than 10x in the last year

Aug 29, 2024

Update - We’ve moved to Substack!

So it’s been a while, things have been hectic growing the amazing team at Hypercube - I’ll do a full update in the post below but a little housekeeping first.

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A big year

This time last year I was fast approaching my first anniversary in business with Hypercube - a journey I started alone, bootstrapping from a meagre £478 initial investment. We’d had some great customers join us and delivered some outstanding projects. We were welcoming our first full-time employee and looking at serious growth over the coming months.

Fast-forward to today, and we’re now at more than 20 permanent members of staff, building some amazing technology and impact for dozens of customers, have achieved 10X more revenue than the previous financial year, and are starting to expand into the US, EU, and UAE. All while taking on no additional investment.

It’s been big!

I’ve made a boat load of mistakes, learnt a tonne, and am eager for the year ahead.

In this post I really wanted to share with you some of the things I think had the most impact on that growth.

Why?

These are mindsets and approaches that can be applied to any team or function in the data and AI sector - and they might help unlock the next level of growth you’re looking for.

I’d love to hear your thoughts so please let me know via the channels here.

Top 5 lessons for growth

So here it is, my thoughts on a year of experimentation and collaborative effort. In no particular order…

1 - Communicate the vision to death

No one understands the vision like you do.

You don’t even truly understand it - it’ll slowly change and grow with the context you’re in as it starts to get tested against the world.

Multiply your lack of understanding by the natural, perfectly normal delta between what is said and what is heard and you have a recipe for misalignment and misunderstanding. The best way to combat this from what I have seen is to communicate the vision over and over and over again.

This does two things, it gives people a chance to reapply what they thought they heard and realign. And it gives you a chance to practice your wording, test it in the world, see how it feels and adjust course.

Once people get it and can communicate it on your behalf the snowball will start rolling. People will naturally make decisions and expand on your initial ideas - and it will start to take a life of its own.

This also applies to external parties - partners, customers, suppliers. Getting super clear on what you’re trying to achieve and why can help you form some really strong relationships that are win-win and built to last.

2 - Let go and close your eyes

This is essentially about trust and not-micromanaging.

As a consultancy we’re really lucky to peer into other people’s businesses and see how things work. It’s so painful to witness micromanagement and low-trust environments.

Probably the most impactful thing is having the confidence to really let your team take the wheel and run with something. It unlocks so much time and good will.

And I don’t just mean the small stuff. We’re at a point with many people now that we can hand them huge proposals, complex internal projects, or significant budgets and leave them to do good work with few check ins.

Let go of the wheel and you’ll be surprised, you’ll enjoy the ride more.

3 - If you break it, can we fix it?

Related to letting go, you need to have a deep understanding across the board about how much risk you’re able to take, when to escalate, when to seek broader approval.

It’s a hard thing to measure and will be unique to your context - you’ll need to be a lot more risk averse if you’re dealing with sensitive information or safety critical decisions.

But if you’re in an environment where big mistakes can be unpicked and easily fixed, you’re in a sweetspot for high autonomy, high trust.

I’m constantly trying to instill a culture where everyone feels empowered to make big decisions and understand deeply that if something breaks or fails, we’ll swarm in as a team and fix it.

No blame. No finger pointing. Just smart people working collaboratively.

Sometimes people nod and agree but are still a bit scared to make the big leaps. Where this is achieved it unlocks faster iterations and huge accelearation across the business.

4 - Your audience will find you

One of the biggest bets I took with Hypercube was the single sector focus. We’re obsessed with the energy sector. All of our marketing points that way. The website aims to look and feel like something from the energy sector - wearehypercube.com

We do some pieces of work outside of this domain - it keeps things fresh for the team and we’re always keen to help good, interesting companies - but on the whole, we’re going after one thing.

At first, this is scary - so few people do it. Are we going to scare away potential customers with this messaging? What about all the shiny things over there?

After a while, however, people start to take notice. The conversations become easier and word of mouth spreads.

Sticking to your topic and delivering high value in that space builds over time.

This is very similar to making content and writing - find your thing and keep iterating on it, become known for that and the rest will follow.

5 - Brutal transparency

The final thing on my list, and maybe one of the biggest, is being painfully transparent.

I’ve shared my salaries both online and earnings.

I tell customers what margins we aim to make, what our core costs are. I talk customers through our likes and dislikes on working with them.

I speak with the team about goals, ambitions, mental health, failures, and mistakes.

Why?

Mainly because it’s so much easier this way. You don’t have to think. To craft the message to get some veiled meaning across. Just share the truth and let what happens play out.

Now none of that’s to say you shouldn’t be careful, there are mindful ways of communicating the hard stuff. You always need to treat people with decency, sensitivity, and respect. But you can do that and be super transparent.

Getting comfortable breaking past those “taboo” subjects and just relating to people - human to human - really makes a difference.

It’s a bit of a superpower. And when everyone starts doing it, then the magic really happens.

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Final Thoughts

It’s been a bonkers year but great fun and lots of learning. If you’re keen on hearing more about this journey, let me know, as I have lots to share.

All the best,
Adam

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