Lars Dahlbom has extensive experience in leading growth companies, which adds credibility to his interactions with companies in Swedish Scaleups. As a business coach, he accompanies the companies on their fluctuating growth journey through ups and downs.
“I never claim to know exactly what they should do. But I usually have ideas about the questions they need to seek answers to in order to progress in their development,” he says.
In the mid-80s, Lars was part of the second cohort to earn an academic degree in computer science. It was a time when the subject was often referred to as ADB in academia or simply “data” colloquially. As one of the pioneers in the field, Lars witnessed society’s digital transformation from within, primarily by being a driving force in several consulting firms. Over time, however, Lars shifted his focus from programming to sales and marketing strategy.
– All strategy must stem from the customers one has decided to assist. Typically, technology isn’t a problem for companies, Lars says.
The challenge usually lies in ensuring that the products they develop actually solve the customers’ problems.
Nearly 15 years ago, Lars began taking on business coaching assignments for UIC. After a couple of years, he was also asked to make the organization, which primarily served industrial and pharmaceutical companies at the time, more relevant for IT companies.
– In short, speed was the most important parameter we needed to adjust to better suit IT companies, Lars recalls.
In comparison to, for example, life science companies, IT companies have significantly shorter development cycles. Models like Lean Startup and Customer Development became important tools in our toolbox. We encouraged companies to have ongoing dialogues with their future customers early on.
Within Swedish Scaleups, Lars has been involved in developing the Scaleup Roadmap module. The program is structured as a 10-step process and helps companies focus on the right things in their growth journey. Additionally, it makes the companies more attractive and investable for external financiers. Central to the module is enabling companies to easily explain their business and then establish the five most important key metrics crucial for their future success. Companies set goals for where they want to be in three years and milestones along the way.
– The strength lies in us determining the key metrics and plotting them out together in a timeline, Lars says.
This also makes the growth plan more credible and understandable for investors. We focus on concrete things that drive the business. For example, making demonstrations for prospective customers. If, for instance, we know that on average it takes three demonstrations to acquire a customer, it’s easy to work backward to figure out what it will take for us to reach the end goal.
Lars’ three most important factors for innovative scaleups:
- Meet the customer early on
Do customers have a problem that we can help them with? Do they themselves realize they have the problem? Are they willing to change their behavior? The challenge is to dare to meet customers early on, before investing too much time and money into developing something finished and polished. D - Charge early
Be receptive to understanding when a customer is actually ready to pay. If they pay, it’s an early validation that you’re onto something good. - Don’t scale too early
Wait until you’ve validated your business 100%. This requires that customers have actually cashed up. Many scale too quickly and make significant investments for a journey that doesn’t align with customers’ needs. It all boils down to the fact that most failures occur because they haven’t ensured that customers really want to pay. Customers don’t really care about your product, but they’re happy to pay if you can help them solve a real problem. ”first nail it, then scale it!”
Contakt:
Lars Dahlbom, Business coach UIC
Swedish Scaleups
lars.dahlbom@uic.se