We are growing. Especially in 2022. I am truly proud of what we are achieving as a team and what our clients are achieving.
Sprout is in the unique position of being in the same stage of growth that many of our customers are in, moving from start-up to scale-up.
I felt it was worth capturing how we got here, before we embark on our own scaled growth in the coming 18 months.
Living, working and growing with ambiguity
Our chairperson, Henry Lynch recently said to me that one of the key characteristics of being successful in a startup or scaleup, is being comfortable with ambiguity.
We are almost four years old as a business and it feels like ambiguity has been the constant. Yes we have had two years of lockdown impacted business, but even prior to that, figuring out what we do and how we live to our vision has meant that this has been key for us.
That being said, we realise that the last 18 months has been a uniquely challenging time. Our team has experienced growth through this period and in the coming months we are ready to add to our team, despite what ambiguity is thrown at us.
How have we grown?
Focus
Gaynor just celebrated three years with Sprout (“congrats GT, you are awesome!”) and I asked her what she is most proud of from a Sprout perspective? It is that whilst we have evolved and developed as a business that we haven’t lost sight of our original purpose and our vision as an organisation.
Everyone at Sprout is clear on helping Kiwi businesses grow (start-ups and scale-ups) and we love this space. Everything we do from the language we use, our product and service offering, pricing structure, team we hire is to deliver to this.
But it’s hard… Ben Horowitz covers this topic well in The Hard Thing About Hard Things. I love how this review captures Ben’s focus on People, Products and Profit in that order. This is the approach we try and take at Sprout.
People - avoiding leaking taps
Our people are key. One of our principles at Sprout is that we need to practice what we preach. We roll out all the products and services we create on our team first. It helps that we are a start-up as well, but it means that our products are authentic and lived by us.
Products - learn, adapt, grow
One of our core values is instinct. Everyone in our team has contributed to new product development in our business. We have now validated our product offering, through research, but a lot of it has been following our instinct about what needs to be in place for growing organisations.
Instinct, or intuition, is really practiced rationale. I truly believe this with our team. We have interviewed over 300 people that work in start-ups now, we listen to podcasts, read blogs, attend events, network in this space, are growing ourselves and learning with our customers.
When we started Sprout, we really knew next-to-nothing about the ecosystem.
Customers - sorry Ben H, it doesn’t start with P. But, for us great customers has been key.
Throughout the rollercoaster ride of Sprout we have been able to keep profitable, yes, but it has been only because of the awesome businesses we work with.
As any business owner knows there is a big difference between good and bad profit. We are super lucky that the businesses we work with pay on time and this has helped us build cashflow and grow our business. We have also been really lucky that for the most part our industry, and our customers' industries have not been impacted as heavily by lockdowns. We are very grateful.
Without the customers we have, we would not be able to grow. Thank you to all the business owners that place trust in us to be an extension of their business.
Interested in Sprout, come work with us?
We are actively looking for people to join us on the next stage of growth.
This year has been a big focus on getting ready for our growth in 2022 and beyond. I am hugely proud of what we and our clients have achieved so far. In New Zealand only 37% of start-ups make it past year two. We are proud that we have made it past this milestone ourselves, but are proud that over 80% of the companies we partner with have also made it past this milestone.
If you are passionate about the role start-ups and scale-ups play in making New Zealand a more prosperous country and the impact on our communities drop me a note (brien@sproutnz.com or via LinkedIn).
Brien Keegan is the original founder of Sprout. He has had experience all over the world in helping organisations grow, but is most passionate about the growth of Kiwi companies. He started Sprout as he felt there had to be a better way to help small, growing businesses, with their people, recruitment and culture.
