Upscaling and Scaling Business Ideas into Reality – Jeff Bezos takes Amazon from Online Bookstore to Global Dominance
Find Angel Funding & Venture Capital for Business Startups, Entrepreneurs, & First Time Founders – Episode 4
Congratulations, your market testing worked and you were able to find customers, or at least one customer. Your beta test was successful and you are confident that you are ready for more. What do you do when you start getting customers or users? I recommend you do some scaling or upscaling.
Quick clarification, I have seen the terms scaling and upscaling used interchangeably in the startup world. For our purposes, we will use the term scaling to mean taking the actions necessary to grow your customer base. We will use the term upscaling to mean improving the quality of your business.
Market testing is performing activities designed to prove or disprove that there is a market for your business idea. We did a limited amount of market testing during our beta testing. Now that you have proven you can find a service 1-2 customers, let’s see what happens when you try to do handle 10, 12, 14 customers/users. This is scaling your business.
I call this mini-scaling, since we are probably not ready to handle thousands of customers/users yet. Let’s put the business processes, system, and the business idea you have built under some pressure. Do you do it all yourself? Can your team handle it? Do you need to hire employees or contractors? Do you need another location or more space? Can you use technology to help smooth the transition? Do you need other financial assets? Upscaling your business is the goal.
One of the things you will learn very quickly is that there is a difference between serving one customer vs. serving 10 customers vs. 100 customers. It can change almost everything about your business processes.
Jeff Bezos started Amazon started as a bookseller in 1994, and later scaled by first adding things like home appliances and video games. Today the online retailer sells almost anything.
Amazon also upscaled by offering online customers much more than just products. Jeff Bezos initially stayed away from carrying inventory. Today, the online marketplace own warehouses full of inventory. Amazon also offers entrepreneurs the ability to sell their products through their website. In 2006 Amazon started offering order fulfillment services. Today, Amazon is one of the largest companies in the world
You need to think the same way to create your billion-dollar company. Scaling and upscaling are not just one-time things. They both need to become part of your culture and ongoing growth strategy.
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Sources:
https://rencarlton.blogspot.com/2021/05/upscaling-and-scaling-business-ideas.html
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/upscaling-scaling-business-ideas-jeff-bezos-takes-amazon-ren-carlton
https://register.omegadestiny.com/register-business-for-funding
https://register.omegadestiny.com/register-to-market-to-our-companies
https://hbr.org/1975/05/when-where-and-how-to-test-market#
https://startupsmagazine.co.uk/article-how-successfully-upscale-your-business-under-three-years
https://smallbusiness.co.uk/five-tips-help-small-companies-upscale-compete-big-business-2537684/
https://hbr.org/2014/08/how-to-finance-the-scale-up-of-your-company
https://www.thebalancesmb.com/how-to-scale-a-business-4155615
https://www.thebalancesmb.com/what-are-retained-earnings-393324
https://www.thebalancesmb.com/equity-financing-2947068
https://www.thebalancesmb.com/debt-financing-2947067
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Amazoncom
Disclaimer: This does not constitute an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation of any security or any other product or service. We are not offering legal, investment, tax, or medical advice.