Scale vs. Speed: Why Organizations Slow Down

Scale vs. Speed: Why Organizations Slow Down

In today's fast-paced world, organizations face a constant dilemma between scale and speed. As they grow and expand, they often find that their ability to innovate and adapt slows down. This phenomenon is not unique to any particular industry or company, but rather a common challenge that many organizations face.

One of the main reasons why organizations slow down as they scale is due to a shift in customer expectations. When a company is just starting out, its customers are often early adopters who are looking for innovation and new ideas. However, as the company grows and gains more mainstream customers, their expectations shift towards trust, reliability, and efficiency.

Customers want promises kept, a lack of surprises, reasonable prices, and efficiency. They no longer prioritize innovation as much as they prioritize consistency and predictability. This shift in customer expectations puts pressure on organizations to focus more on delivering a reliable product or service rather than pushing the boundaries of innovation.

Another factor that contributes to the slowdown of organizations as they scale is the need to refactor their code from scratch. As a company grows, it often accumulates technical debt, which refers to the extra work that needs to be done in the future due to shortcuts or compromises made in the present. To continue scaling and improving, organizations need to invest time and resources into refactoring their codebase to ensure it is scalable and efficient.

However, refactoring code can be a time-consuming process that takes away from the speed of innovation. It requires assembling a dedicated team to tackle this task, taking them away from working on new features or products. While it may seem counterintuitive to slow down in order to speed up, refactoring code is a necessary step to ensure long-term scalability and efficiency.

Interestingly, many of the famous big companies we know today actually started with just a small team of dedicated individuals. Companies like Apple, Google, Slack, and Instagram all began with a dozen full-time employees. This highlights the importance of starting small and focusing on quality rather than quantity.

Now, let's shift our focus to Substack, a platform that has gained significant attention in recent years. Substack emerged as a solution to the challenges faced by traditional media organizations. It recognized that attention had become a scarce resource and that the traditional business model of optimizing for time was no longer effective.

Instead, Substack proposed a new business model that optimizes for money. It tapped into the growing trend of people being willing to pay for niche content, such as podcasts about war history or YouTube shows about video game critiques. By changing the focus from maximizing time spent on the platform to maximizing value for both writers and readers, Substack disrupted the traditional media landscape.

Substack's success can be attributed to its ability to build trust with both writers and readers. It started by approaching established writers, like Bill Bishop, and offering them a simple way to monetize their content through paid newsletters. By focusing on niche interests and providing a platform that lacked any sort of writer lock-in, Substack built a high degree of trust among its users.

This trust is what sets Substack apart from other platforms. Readers who subscribe to one Substack publication are more likely to trust and subscribe to other Substack publications as well. This network effect not only benefits the writers on the platform but also creates a sense of community and loyalty among readers.

So, how can organizations navigate the challenges of scale vs. speed and learn from Substack's success? Here are three actionable pieces of advice:

• 1. Prioritize customer trust and reliability: As your organization grows, remember that customer expectations will shift towards trust, reliability, and efficiency. Focus on delivering a consistent and predictable product or service that meets these expectations.

• 2. Invest in refactoring code: While it may slow down the pace of innovation in the short term, investing in refactoring your codebase is essential for long-term scalability and efficiency. Allocate dedicated resources to tackle technical debt and ensure your code is robust and scalable.

• 3. Build trust with your audience: Like Substack, focus on building trust with your customers or users. Offer a product or service that meets their specific needs and provides value. Prioritize transparency, reliability, and community-building to foster trust and loyalty.

In conclusion, the challenge of scale vs. speed is a common one that organizations face as they grow. By understanding the shift in customer expectations, investing in technical infrastructure, and building trust with their audience, organizations can navigate this challenge and continue to innovate and make a bigger impact in their industry.