5 Things You Need To Know About Scaling Your Business

After building and investing in dozens of companies, Dr. Lelemba Phiri offers a powerful truth: scaling isn’t about chasing growth — it’s about removing the barriers that block it. In this thoughtful yet energizing guide, she outlines five essentials for sustainable scale: start with a product people genuinely want, create clear paths for them to find and buy it, build a team that can execute, manage cash flow with discipline, and most importantly — learn to let go.

True growth, she argues, comes from momentum built on clarity, trust, and smart execution. When founders focus on what truly matters — not just what feels urgent — they unlock not only business success, but the satisfaction that comes with doing it right.

After building three companies from the ground up and investing in 30 more, I’ve learned that scaling isn’t about forcing growth — it’s about removing barriers to natural growth. But before you can remove barriers, you need to build something people actually want. Here are five critical elements that determine whether you’ll successfully scale or hit a wall.

1. Start with a Good Product That Meets Customer Needs

You cannot ‘force-feed’ people a product or service they don’t want or need. I’ve watched countless entrepreneurs burn through a lot of money trying to convince the market their product or solution matters, when the market was already telling them it didn’t by not buying it repeatedly.

This sounds obvious, but it’s the most common mistake I see. Founders fall in love with their solution and assume everyone else will too. They build elaborate marketing funnels and hire sales teams to push a product that customers are lukewarm about.

The best products sell themselves. If you’re constantly having to convince people why they need what you’re offering, you might have a product problem, not a marketing problem. Listen to your customers. Pay attention to how they actually use your product versus how you intended them to use it. The market will tell you what it wants — you just have to be willing to hear it.

When you get this foundation right first, everything else becomes exponentially easier.

2. Build a Clear Path to Your Customers

Having a great product means nothing if people can’t find it, understand it or buy it easily. I’ve seen many entrepreneurs have an incredible solution, but the go-to-market strategy was essentially “build it and they will come.” The customers didn’t.

Your scaling strategy must answer three questions: How will your ideal customers discover you? How will they learn about what you do? How simple is it for them to actually purchase from you?

Map out every touchpoint in your customer journey. If someone hears about you at a conference, can they easily find your website? Once there, is it immediately clear what you offer and how it helps them? Can they buy or sign up without jumping through hoops? Every friction point in this process is a leak in your growth engine. Fix the leaks before you turn up the pressure.

3. Assemble a Team That Can Execute

Ideas on their own don’t scale — execution does. The difference between companies that grow and companies that stagnate often comes down to whether they have people who can turn strategy into results.

When I evaluate companies for investment, I spend more time assessing the team than the product. Can the founder delegate effectively? Does the team have complementary skills? Most importantly, do they have people who have successfully scaled businesses before?

You don’t need superstars in every role, but you need people who are hungry, reliable and aligned with your vision. One great executor is worth five mediocre hires. Invest in finding them, compensating them well and giving them the authority to make decisions.

4. Cash Is King

Revenue might pay the bills, but cash flow determines whether you survive the scaling process. Growth is expensive. You’re hiring people, investing in systems and often extending payment terms to win bigger clients — all while waiting for those investments to pay off.

I’ve seen profitable companies go under because they couldn’t bridge the cash gap that comes with rapid growth. Build detailed cash flow projections for different growth scenarios. Understand your cash conversion cycle and work to shorten it. Secure financing before you’re desperate, not when you’re running on fumes.

Most importantly, learn to say no to opportunities that might strain your cash position. That big client who wants 90-day payment terms might not be worth the risk if it puts your payroll at risk.

5. Know When to Let Go

The hardest part of scaling isn’t building the business — it’s stepping back from it, when necessary. Every founder I know struggles with this, myself included. It is hard not to want to review every piece of marketing copy even when you have 100+ customers in the name of ‘maintaining quality’, but that behaviour can actually strangle growth.

Your ability to scale is directly tied to your ability to let go. Start by identifying what only you can do versus what you do because you’ve always done it. Then systematically remove yourself from the second category.

Document your processes, train your team and give them real authority to make decisions. Yes, they’ll make different choices than you would. Some will be worse, but many will be better. More importantly, they’ll make decisions faster because they won’t be waiting for your approval.

Your role shifts from being the person with all the answers to being the person who ensures the right questions get asked.

The Bottom Line

Scaling a business isn’t about forcing growth — it’s about removing the barriers to natural growth. Start with something people genuinely want, build clear paths for them to find and buy it, assemble a team that can execute consistently, manage your cash carefully and learn to step back so others can step up.

Lelemba Phiri, Ph.D. is a gender lens investor focused on investing in female-led and gender-diverse teams building scalable, sustainable businesses.