Challenge of Building a Company in Each Stage

Big companies start from scratch, and that’s what happened to Odoo. It is a single platform that accommodates all cross-team operational needs, including e-commerce, project management, CRM, manufacturing, and other operational features.

It started when Fabien Pinckaers saw the market potential amidst the rapid release of Alphabet and giant tech services. He then chose to compile it as Odoo, an affordable option.

Initially, he became a generalist and focused on physical products and services rather than revenue. During the hiring process for new freshmen, he screens young talent not based on resumes but on IQ tests and competencies.

From 0 to 1,000+ employees deployed in 10 countries, we will learn from Odoo’s journey when Fabien took a different approach to building the business.

Stage 1

1 to 10 Employees – Building the Foundation

At the early stage, leaders need to determine the product or service offered to the target market. After showcasing the product or service to the public, you will observe the user persona or target audience.

This phase does not mean that you suddenly get what you want. There are times when you need to fall and rise, trial and error, when introducing your business. You receive feedback as input to improve your business and product features.

Fabien started building the foundation when he was a teenager. What came to his mind was building something instead of getting money, software that had an impact on people. However, he wasn’t the brainiest one at school; instead, he was still having fun rather than sitting at the bars.

“I didn’t go to a lecture, I was doing a business or having fun and drinking beers, but I continue developing software for company during the university,” said Fabien to 20VC.

As a student, he earned a lot of money, but not enough to build a company. He continued to sell art marketplaces, e-commerce, and antivirus software and had good relations with auction houses, which were his customers for his e-commerce website.

In this phase, Odoo’s founder created a platform encompassing everything he did. He redefined the service and added new features that customers needed. All these things were built within two years.

Lesson Learned from Building the Foundation

• Key Challenge
  • Establishing the fundamentals of the business.
  • Developing the product and refining the service offering.
  • Founders must deeply involve themselves in every aspect of the business.
• Focus Areas
  • Creativity and resilience to solve early-stage problems.
  • Adapting quickly based on customer feedback and market demands.
• Actionable Insights
  • Prioritise customer impact and quality in building products/services.
  • Be hands-on and lead by example to inspire the small team.

Stage 2

10 to 100 Employees – Managing Growth Through Culture

When the company started targeting 100 employees who focused on customer on-hand service, this phase made him work harder in a few months while establishing the culture.

What was done was to keep working and delivering services, which made Fabien the main shareholder. Returning to the initial focus of setting aside revenue, he built the business and redefined the services.

In 2010, he pivoted the business model, changing service activities to a software vendor model. He focused more on software and less on services, focusing on fixing the user interface and developing the R&D team.

The business pivot successfully raised €300 million in the first round, which is 30% of the company. However, there is still a long story, and juggling with the open source business model and community-based. 

He took over the hats of the marketing team and another department, changing the price with soaring revenues but not with partner networks. After the discussions, Fabien took a few months to decide to return to the old pricing of the software.

Investing in young talent was never wrong. Believing that people in their 20s are still very agile and energetic. It has been a tradition that startup companies hire younger employees as they will be more actively contributing to innovation and new ways of thinking.

To align with this startup’s culture, Fabien prefers not to prioritise meetings unless an ongoing project needs to be tracked across departments. For instance, utilising tools is the most efficient method in a team of 10 people.

“…Recurring meeting is the way to manage people, and we try to avoid manager. We want team leaders that work with them. So we try to avoid recurring meeting,” he continued.

As a business leader with a developer background, Fabien most likely spends 50% on research and development of the products instead of having coffee tables with partners or networking. The rest is spent monitoring the internal processes of each department and conducting A/B tests to monitor work progress.

Lesson Learned from Managing Growth Through Culture

• Key Challenge:
  • Maintaining a strong company culture as middle management structures emerge.
  • Founder’s direct influence diminishes as middle managers take responsibility.
  • Culture is now shaped by how managers interact with and lead their teams.
• Focus Areas:
  • Communication: Aligning middle managers with the founder’s vision and values.
  • Hiring: Ensuring middle managers embody the company culture and principles.
  • Leadership: Transitioning to a more indirect leadership role.
• Actionable Insights:
  • Develop clear communication frameworks for cascading values and goals.
  • Regularly engage with managers to ensure alignment with the company’s mission.
  • Foster collaborative environments where managers feel empowered to lead effectively.

Stage 3

1,000+ Employees – Scaling with Efficiency

When a company has reached a thousand employees, monitoring the work results individually is undoubtedly not easy. Good system management helps form a good operational flow at this stage. Therefore, leaders must ensure the built system has successfully created efficient operations. It is no longer about managing people, but systems.

Utilising the best tools operationally is way more worth investing time than managing people. Learning from Odoo’s leader, KPI can be very subjective. However, it depends on the work culture. Setting clear KPI or OKRs is a system that helps monitor work results based on targets. But often what happens is that leaders manage people, not the tasks. So it is not uncommon for KPI to be considered subjective.

By utilising good tools and system management, you can be more effective in using your budget when hiring tech talents. Offshore development services can provide measurable flexibility without having to spend a lot of money. Moreover, if you are a startup company, offshoring developers can help save your time and money.

Lesson Learned from Scaling with Efficiency

• Key Challenge:
  • Ensuring operational scalability while maintaining growth momentum.
  • Processes need to be seamless, efficient, and scalable.
  • The founder’s focus shifts towards organisational excellence and infrastructure.
• Focus Areas:
  • Building robust systems for decision-making and streamlined operations.
  • Preserving quality while managing complexity at scale.
  • Driving cross-departmental collaboration.
• Actionable Insights:
  • Implement scalable processes and invest in automation where possible.
  • Establish clear KPIs while maintaining flexibility for innovation.
  • Prioritise clean, efficient operations to support future growth.

Building a company through several stages with ups and downs. A successful company can predict how the future landscape of the business being pioneered will be. With Upscalix, you can discuss your company’s needs in scaling up your business.