On Wednesday, Chicago Inno hosted over 150 members of the city's tech community for the Smart Scaling for Startups Meetup at ContextMedia.
Every entrepreneur is focused on growth, on getting their startup from 0 to 60. But what happens when you get there? How do you get from 60 to 70, from 70 to 90, and then from 90 to 180 and beyond? This meetup was all about the challenges that accompany explosive growth and how to leverage, manage, and navigate this initial burst of momentum in order to not just grow your business, but to scale it.
The event was anchored by a panel featuring Shiftgig CEO Eddie Lou, SpotHero CEO Mark Lawrence, Vokal CEO Reid Lappin, and Jellyvision VP of People Mary Beth Wynn - four people and companies that know how to scale. From March, 2014 to March 2016, Shiftgig, a marketplace for part-time employment opportunities, has grown its headcount from 30 to 160 and seen its revenue increase 3 times year-over-year in that time frame.
Vokal, a mobile development and design shop, has gone from 3 to 90 employees in roughly 6 years and Jellyvision, a maker of employee engagement software, has doubled its revenue every year for 3 of the last 4 years and now serve 71 of the Fortune 500. Finally, SpotHero, the on-demand parking startup, is up to 105 employees and recently hit the '2 Million Cars Parked' milestone.
During their discussion, one of the themes that kept resurfacing was the role that culture plays into growth and how clearly defining expectations, both professionally and personally, is critical in order to scale. (Explained Lappin, "You have to make it a priority to care about Work/Life balance."). The four panelists gave anecdote after anecdote about how, at the end of the day, it's the people that you have around you that are going to drive the business forward. (We broadcasted the panel via Facebook Live and you can watch/listen to that on our page here).
Preceding the panel was the "Scale Showcase," a series of 4-5 minutes presentations from industry experts that addressed specific growth-stage pain points, such as staffing, real estate, fundraising, office builds, and global expansion. At the event, we heard from recruiting firm Talener, OCA Ventures principal Imran Ahmad, Cleverbridge's Todd Garcia, corporate real estate company JLL, and general contractor Leopardo Construction.
Also, if you were unable to attend our Scale meetup, make sure you don't miss the State of Innovation, our upcoming event on 5/18 at Venue Six10. Featuring Kickstarter Co-Founder Charles Adler, UIUC Dean of Engineering Andreas Cangelleris, SitterCity Founder Genvieve Thiers, Former Obama for America CTO Michael Slaby, and many, many more, SoI is our annual half-day conference focused on the people, businesses, trends, and topics, that are shaping the city's tech community and economy. (Grab your tickets to SoI here).
Check out some pics from the meetup below and thanks again to Leopardo, JLL, and Talener for partnering with us on such a great event.
(Image via Chicago Inno)
