So, what exactly *is* a scale-up?

The term scale-up has been around for a number of years, but with more and more startups reaching maturity today, it's now become part of common parlance.

Whether you are an entrepreneur or you work for a growing company, knowing what a scale-up really is will help you recognise what stage your business is at - and where you could take it.

Are you ready to go to new heights?

What is a scale-up?

In its simplest form, a scale-up is a company that was once a scrappy tech startup, but has now matured to the next stage of business. Some of the main criteria to define a "scale-up" listed below:

In terms of funding....

A scale-up has experienced growth, early success, and is now ready to take things to the next level. The business might have been through its first few rounds of funding (from friends & family round, pre-seed, or seed) and now be looking towards Series A venture capital investment or similar.

When it comes to revenue...

A typical scale-up should have at least £1M in revenue and re-investing profits back into the business to help it continue to grow.

And team...

According to the OECD, a scale-up should also be experiencing at least 20% annual turnover growth, and a should also have a minimum of 10 team members.

When a company reaches the impressive milestone of hitting scale-up stage, it's a success the company should celebrate - particularly as scale-up life comes with its fair share of challenges....

Help is on the way!

While startups have a lot of help they can access like free advice, grant funding, or mentoring programs, scale-ups are often left to fend for themselves. They receive significantly less guidance and support compared to their whippersnapper counterparts. (You only need to Google "startup" and then "scale-up" to see this for yourself).

For a scale-up to survive this high-growth, high-pressure stage, it needs a strong team and strong leadership. It’s less about making quick decisions like those that were made during the startup phase and more about making big decisions with strategy in mind.

When do startups need to scale-up?

Thanks to a lot of hard work, product-market fit, and - honestly - a dose of good luck, some startups will experience high growth right away, finding themselves scaling up without even really noticing.

Other startups will stay in their nascent stage way for longer, and will therefore need to focus on evolving their product or service, and simply staying around for long enough to catch the market demand when it hits.

If you have your sights set on scaling up your business on its way to the magical unicorn status, then founders need to lead their businesses like one day they'll be leading a scale-up. This will help prepare entrepreneurs for the challenges to come, get you to where you need to go faster, and ensure you have the processes in place to scale.

Where can a scale-up find support?

As a tech founder, some of the knowledge you have gained from running a startup will serve you in your next chapter. But you’ll also face new, unique challenges that only scale-ups can relate to, which is why scale-up’s need support as well.

We have put together some of the best resources we could find to help you on your journey:

• Book recommendation: Upscale by James Silver. This book is about scaling your startup and contains tips from founders who have been there, done that.

• Book recommendation: The Scale-Up Leader: Your Guide to Next Level Success by Stuart Ross. A guide in leadership techniques, methodologies and approaches to scaling-up your business.

• Online resource: Scaling Up Resources

• Online resource: ScaleUp 360

• Course: PwC’s ScaleUp Programme.

• Branding, marketing, or advertising: Looking for sophisticated award-winning marketing that is trusted by the UK’s top scale-ups? Look no further. Book a free 30-minute consultation with Bloom today.

Moving on up

If you are a startup that is looking to scale up, we hope you now have a better understanding of exactly what a scale-up is, when it’s time to go from startup to scale-up, and where you can access support for this next stage of your business.

We work with successful scale-ups on their marketing every day, if you have any questions or need some friendly advice please do not hesitate to get in touch.

At Bloom, we specialise in taking high-growth tech businesses from scrappy startup status to sophisticated scale-up mode. As award-winning brand marketers, we blend strategy and execution to take startups to the next level. If you're a tech founder, ops manager, growth consultant, or "marketing-department-of-one" then book a free 30-minute discovery call with our expert team here.