5 milestones: my road to 40 employees

Miha Lavtar30.09.201815 minOptilife

Without a vision, a wish to create some added value and especially without the constant wish for progress, I would never have entered on my entrepreneurial path at the age of 19.

From the very beginning, my ultimate goal was to have a company with a pleasant atmosphere, where my employees would be happy – I soon found out that good conditions also bring top notch results and, consequently, satisfied clients.

Despite everything, the start of our climb uphill was far from easy.

We’ve learned a lot from our mistakes and from testing different practices. However, the hardest steps I had to take at the very beginning of our growth were steps that weren’t noticeable on the outside: my internal changes. Namely, all milestones that generated growth were based on establishing strong trust in my coworkers and on shifting responsibility – two terms, which seemed like science fiction when I first started out but which are now indispensable to me.

So what changes are we talking about? Why? When? How?

Let’s take it one at a time. :) If I’ve learned anything in my years as an entrepreneur, it’s patience. Nothing worth having comes overnight.

Entrepreneurship is like riding a roller coaster or raising a child

The growth of a company is like a roller coaster.

First, you need to get up the courage to even go on the ride. Then comes the strenuous – and especially slow – climb, when it seems like you’re not really getting anywhere. When you then reach a certain height, you hit the turbulent road of progress, full of ups and downs, of summersaults and wind in your hair.
All this time, you need to trust that you’ll come out of it alive (though I have to admit that I had my doubts), with a new experience and with the whole crew on the roller coaster intact.

And what is the final destination of this ride? A successful, independent company that knows its potentials and, at the same time, its weaknesses, which are no longer a burden but a driving force and a reason to continue to grow.

This process could also be compared with raising a child; you need to slowly give them more freedom and trust them that they know what’s best for them. At the same time, you need to believe that it’s all going to end well – even when they attend their first party.

At the beginning, you need to pay your dues

Here, the metaphor with the baby is more than appropriate. If you want your child to grow up into a strong, independent person, you need to give them all the attention they need when they are younger. The child needs you more than you need a vacation; it is, after all, a period when they are most vulnerable and sensitive.

The same goes for a company. The majority of companies fails at the very beginning, since many don’t realize how serious and challenging the task really is. It is up to you to take care of all the vital things that are necessary for a company to function properly: sales, making appointments, carrying out the projects, accounting, finances, recruitment and a lot more.

A great entrepreneurial advantage is when you are “forced” to take care of all the vital functions by yourself. This is how you figure out how much time and effort it takes to perform certain jobs, which you later pass on to someone else.

When work only piles up and you’re under greater and greater time constraint, you reach your first milestone: should I continue as I am now or should I set upon a real entrepreneurial path?
That’s when you figure out that a day only has 24 hours and you finally admit to yourself that you need help. A lot of help. :)

This is the phase when the “child” should quickly be introduced to an independent and responsible life, so they no longer depend on you.

How? As soon as possible, you should divide the responsibility and hand over your tasks to coworkers who are experts in their fields. This way, the company can function and flourish by itself and is not dependent on you.

Introducing new roles

2012: Handing over the operative part

My first bigger milestone was handing over the operative part and becoming a project manager.
This part was the easiest, since I had a feeling that I have everything under control. I just needed people who were good at the operative part. That’s where David Bergant stepped in and took most of the work of my hands – he was also one of the first people to get employed here. David, thank you!

Over time, I also handed over managing projects to my coworkers who were trained to do the job and so I completely removed myself from the world of performance.

At this point, I want to stress out that it’s a great entrepreneurial advantage if you’re “forced” to take care of all the vital functions by yourself, including the operative part. This is how you figure out how much time and effort it takes to perform certain jobs, which you later pass on to someone else.

2015: Handing over the administration and accounting

Issuing invoices took quite a lot of my time (and especially nerves) every month, since back then we were already issuing over 100 invoices, each of which had to be checked several times. Here, we could also find various unpaid claims, which were sadly last on the to-do list.

This part of my work was extremely uncomfortable; I kept putting it off so a lot times the recovery of the debts was unsuccessful and, consequently, the company was financially deprived because of it.

This is the point where I needed a kick in the ass and, luckily, Rok was more than happy to do it. :)

Together, we realized that we’re missing someone who will take on the challenge of establishing the whole administrative and accounting system.

When my co-worker Tjaša Rupar successfully tackled with this mission, I slowly began to realize that I may not be the best person for all our jobs. Slowly, I also began trusting myself that the path I’m walking on is the right one. All other positions were slowly taken over by people who only had to deal with their line of work, so they could become experts in their field while I could focus on the position of the CEO.

Yup, it was a lot of work organizing everything at the very beginning … :)

2016–2017: Establishing individual teams and appointing team leads

I think this phase was the most spontaneous of them all. It didn’t happen overnight, but the reason for it was perfectly clear.

All employees were then working together, in two offices. But since each team had their own line of work, we quickly ran into a real mess. For starters, we separated the WordPress team and the Magento team – at that time, these were the only two platforms we worked on.

The reason for this separation was also the visit of our best Magento developers at the conference Magento Paradise in Osijek in April 2016.
While visiting the conference, the guys formed strong bonds – on a professional as well as personal level. They talked about the work that’s still ahead of them and they identified the endless possibilities for progress and development. Anže Harej took the charge and set it upon himself to take the entire Magento team on the next level, so he spontaneously became a team lead, which was more than needed.

The green dragon expedition: Aleš Cankar, Rok Meglič, Anže Harej, Janez Alič, Tilen Habjan, Aleš Sušnik

I found this so fascinating that, from then on, I always encourage teams to attend conferences together. This kind of teambuilding can really make miracles. :)

With the formation of the Magento team, the only logical step was to form other teams as well, since internal planning of goals had a very motivational impact. Soon afterwards we got our WordPress team where the challenge of becoming a team lead fell on Anže Svoljšak (who was the most experienced in the group). The marketing team was first led by Patricia and later on her shoes were filled by Nataša. As the company developed even further, we formed a sales team (team lead David) and a design team (team lead Darko) by the end of 2016 and 2017.

I really want to thank all of you, Anže S., Anže H., Nataša, Darko, David and also Patricia, for taking the burden upon yourselves – your work is amazing.

2016: Handing over the sales

In 2016 we had another big test: the confidence that my colleagues will be able to retain the amount of the income we’ve set. Giving up sales was the hardest step for me; the company nevertheless depended on it. But the first time I met David, I was convinced – and my hope was definitely repaid. The numbers only went up, thanks to the whole team, but especially to David for pushing our limits even higher.

If you see that a client is simply not compatible with you, it’s hard to dismiss them if you’re the CEO. But when sales are in the hands of someone else, it gets much easier.

This also opened up new possibilities for me. Before, I had too much work and couldn’t put into practice my ideas about our methods of sales, but now I had more time and I could finally put some of my ideas into practice. We finally introduced CRM (Pipedrive), connected it with the website and professionally established the work process.

And another thing: as a CEO, it’s sometimes hard to say no. For example, if you see that a client is simply not compatible with you, it’s hard to dismiss them. But when sales are in the hands of someone else, it gets much easier because you don’t come off as too harsh.

Good results also brought David a couple of gifts. :)

2017: Handing over the recruitment

My success is based on ingenuity and hard work, but it can mostly be attributed to having a good instinct when it comes to recognizing talents and managing them. I always knew how to find the right people and thankfully I was able to keep them.

However, I slowly realized that I also needed help when it came to recruitment, because I was drowning in work due to the rapid growth of the company. I was especially looking for someone with a more subtle approach, because my direct approach sometimes backfired when I communicated with the fairer sex. :)

In this case, I can also say that I “got lucky”, because I got this person before I even started looking for them. Namely, the news about wanting to implement a new role of a Chief Happiness Officer luckily reached Urška.

You can brighten your coworkers’ day with a lot of things, no matter how small.

To be completely honest: here, I won the jackpot. I never imagined how much she will bring to the table. She’s not merely an HR or CHO – together we make an amazing team that makes sure all the processes run smoothly and that all employees are satisfied.

For more articles on how we managed to establish a winning structure and culture, sign up for our e-news.

What we’ve learned along the way

Even in the year 2018 I still think about how we can continue to grow and I still reminisce over everything I’ve learned along the way. If I could give myself some advice 9 years ago, I would definitely mention the following:

1. Trust your people

The most expensive thing you can give to a coworker is your trust.
Of course, it’s not easy to give it straight away, fearing you might get cheated. I also noticed that some people don’t want the trust in the first place, since it brings a lot of responsibility.

It may sound like a cliché, but the photo says it all. Source: thequotes.in

I rarely check up on my colleagues and even when I do it’s due to our processes of optimization. I don’t inspect their work because it’s simply too time consuming. However, they’re all aware that trust demands results. This way, natural selection soon does its work and, furthermore, this is (in my opinion) the only way of achieving progress and growth.

2. Stick to what you’re good at

At the beginning, I thought that I was the right person for the functions I had – so that would be all the functions. :)

This naïve thinking is in most cases to blame when an entrepreneur isn’t able to develop the company from the “production stage” into an actual company.
Fortunately, when I handed over the first functions, I realized that I simply wasn’t made for some things, that I don’t enjoy doing them and that I’m, consequently, not good at them.

It’s much more efficient if you let other capable people take care of those functions while you focus yourself on things where you can add some value – this way, you’re already a step closer to victory. Sounds easy, huh? :)

3. The time is right is when you make it right

Is there really ever the right time for something new? If all we did was wait for our lives to take the right course, the answer would probably be “no”.

At the beginning, I had a lot of work, so I kept convincing myself and others that I first need to put all the current affairs in order before I can find and train someone new to do it. But that can take a loooooot of time.

With time, the workload doesn’t decrease – it only gets worse. At some point, you just need to put an end to it and find an additional employee so they can help you out of the loop.

This is never easy, but it is a good test that shows whether the new person has what it takes.

4. Systemization of posts

People won’t occupy the same posts forever and you will never find a single person to memorize all the work tasks and processes. That’s why it’s even more important to write a detailed handbook for individual job descriptions.

It’s similar to a recipe. We all love our grandma’s lasagna; we know how it looks and what it should taste like. But usually it’s only grandma who can make it just the way we’ve imagined.

When a team gets a new member, the handbook comes in handy when you need to present their job and what it encompasses. Not to mention when a team loses a person that was in charge for a certain field! That’s when the handbook is pure gold.

However, this handbook shouldn’t be strictly yours or the “CEO’s” – you need to write it together with your coworkers. There is no greater motivation than giving your employees a say when it matters the most.

5. Find the right people and help them grow by finding the right path for them

For me, the most important thing on which the entire success story depends upon is the people. You need to find courageous people who are ready to take on a challenge and teamwork.

The word “courageous” stands here with a reason – a lot of people would instead use “experienced”, which is unfortunately not always the case.

At the beginning, I was looking for people who would fit my paychecks at that time. At the beginning you simply don’t have the funds for experienced people, so you need to get creative. We resorted to building a strong culture and employee branding but you can of course also use other effective measures.

When you get the right employees, you shouldn’t save your money when it comes to their training, because it enables them to grow professionally as well as personally. You should also make it clear that sometimes a step backwards means making 3 steps forward.

The people who wish to grow in the direction that suits them most, will sometimes pass on their role to someone else. And we have quite a few great examples, isn’t that right, Janez, Aleš, Tilen and Patricia ? :)

I’m well aware of the fact that you need a strong foundation when building a company; foundations that are more than necessary. One of those foundations was Barbara who’s been with me practically from the very beginning. We’ve both made huge progress in our fields since then, so thank you, Barbara, for everything we’ve been through. :)

Some final thoughts

The path to finding the right structure and the right people is anything but easy, but it is a part of entrepreneurship I find extremely interesting, educational and, a lot of times, even fun.
The process of handing over my responsibilities really taught me a lot and if I had to do it all over again, I would hand over my work much faster.

What would I change? I would definitely not cling to my baton the way I did – right after the first round I would pass it on to someone else. For me, that’s the only true recipe for victory.

Well, my relay is not over yet: and since I’ve always liked to contribute to the development of Slovenian entrepreneurship, I decided to lend you a hand when it comes to development and growth of your company.

If you’re currently facing the same situation I faced all those years ago, I’m more than happy to get on the roller coaster with you and help you steer it in the right direction.

However, this road will be anything but easy; sometimes, you’ll get the feeling that you can’t go on, that you’re at a standstill – but I’m positive that, at the end, you’ll be on a crazy ride with the wind blowing in your hair. (Apparently, the wind was blowing too fiercely on my ride, so I had to change my haircut accordingly … ;))

Would you like me to help you with the growth of your company?

Send me your e-mail so we can get to know each other!

Miha Lavtar

CEO

Founder and CEO of Optiweb, who started his entrepreneurship journey at the age of 19. My vision is to build companies with heart and soul which was already recognized by 5 different HR awards.