Innovation Advisory · Framework 04
The Scale Decision
The second district
Does it work somewhere you did not build it, without the original team in the room?
What works at the pilot site works because of the pilot team. The question is whether it works without them.
The breaking point
What breaks first at ten times the size? Name the specific part, and leave the aspiration out of it.
If you cannot name it, you have thought about ambition and have not yet thought about scale.
The trade
Who loses when you grow? What gets worse so that something else gets bigger?
Scale always trades something away, whether intimacy, quality, trust or speed. Name what you are trading and who pays the cost.
The demand
Is the demand real or manufactured? Are people asking for this, or are you convincing them to want it?
If you have to run an awareness campaign before anyone uses it, the demand is coming from you.
The team
Can the team you have run the thing you want to build?
Scaling with the same team means stretching the same people thinner. Scaling with a new team means trusting people who were not in the room when the idea was born.
The small
What would staying small protect? What does smallness give you that growth takes away?
Some things work because they are small. Name what smallness gives you before you give it up, because you may not get it back.
The pressure
Is the funder asking you to scale, or is the evidence?
These are different pressures. One comes with money and the other comes with proof, and they point in the same direction less often than you think.
The exit
What is the exit if scale fails? Write the sentence that describes what happens.
If the sentence is too painful to write, the risk is too high.
The verdict
Based on the answers above, will you scale it, hold it, or protect what you have?