
How to deal with hyper growth? - liverfall
Hello,<p>I would like to understand some of the strategies how to deal with hyper growth? For example we need to add around 10 engineers a month, it is taking a toll in how one could hire them and onboard them. Did you encounter a situation where you said NO to new clients due to hyper growth?<p>Thanks<p>Thanks
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cimmanom
How big are you already? Growing from 3 to 13 engineers in a month is very
different from growing from 100 to 110 (and even the latter would be
considered hyper-growth, especially if recurring for multiple months).

The former level of growth is dangerous in many ways. It incentivizes you to
hire below your standards. It completely replaces your carefully cultivated
team culture with a wave of people who will form their own culture. It
overwhelms your existing people with onboarding.

And then if the new clients don’t stick around in the long term you’re stuck
paying salaries for a whole bunch of people you don’t have work for, or
letting the lot of them go.

Classic worth reading: The Mythical Man Month.

If you’re starting with a very small team, I’d suggest hiring a couple full-
timers and a couple contractors, and letting go of some of the potential
clients.

Another option, if you’re doing bespoke work (you didn’t say what your company
does) would be to subcontract to another agency. That gives you a lot more
boots on the ground without the additional people complexity. Then, as you
grow at a more reasonable rate, you can gradually bring more of that work back
in house, since you generally don’t want to outsource your core competency.

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swingline-747
That's a good problem to have, but be sure it's necessary to solve customer
pain rather than to impress anyone or follow a "grand plan."

Talk to Triplebyte, get on Github jobs, go to related tech meetups... make it
your mission to try out people and get more than you need, because some won't
work out.

Always be hiring (at least long-cycle interviewing) so you won't be caught
without some staff potentials whom are warmly interested, and able to speed up
the process when scaling is needed.

Ask solid hires to recommend people they really want to work with because
they'll be happier and it makes for faster interviewing.

You have to say "not right now" (rather than no) until you can deliver. Help
them find suitable alternatives if you can't deliver in a reasonable
timeframe.

