To be successful in the long term, you not only need to scale, but also develop your team, your structures and your organizational culture in a targeted manner. This chapter is about how you can prepare your startup for the next growth phase while remaining adaptable and competitive.
You’ve come to the right place if …
- you have founded an impact startup.
- your target group, the problem, the solution and your impact are clearly defined.
- your minimal viable product (MVP) has been tested and validated.
- you have determined the impact and market potential as well as the financing model.
- the necessary resources are available.

Not quite ready yet?
Then select the appropriate chapter here
This chapter helps to …
- to expand and develop your team in a targeted manner.
- efficient structures and processes.
- reflect on and shape your organizational culture.
Strengthen and expand your team
To manage your growing startup, you need a strong team. This means not only attracting new talent, but also training existing employees. Ask yourself what skills you are missing and how you can close these gaps. With clear plans for skills, further development and new team members, you can lay the foundations for sustainable growth.
1. defines the required skills
Identify the key qualifications required for each role in your startup. Pay attention to hard skills (technical skills) and soft skills (social and personal skills) as well as future company goals.
Typical hard skill gaps are:
- Technical skills: Lack of knowledge in programming languages or AI can hinder the growth of solutions.
- Financial management: Insufficient knowledge of financial calculation and accounting can jeopardize the sustainable development of the startup.
- Project management: A lack of skills in the structured planning and implementation of projects can impair efficiency.
- Impact measurement: Lack of ability to measure and report on the social or environmental impact of the startup
Typical soft skill gaps are:
- Difficulties with teamwork or communication can affect collaboration in the startup, with customers or target groups.
- A lack of problem-solving skills or creativity can stand in the way of developing innovative approaches and overcoming challenges.
- A lack of leadership qualities or management skills in corresponding positions can have a negative impact on structures, processes and organizational culture.
Employ impact managers
Introduce an impact management position to measure, manage and maximize the impact of your startup. You don’t necessarily have to hire a new person for this.
You can also allocate sufficient time resources to one or more team members to implement your impact management.
This allows you to improve the effectiveness and transparency of your work, communicate clear results to investors and stakeholders and further develop your solution in a targeted manner. Impact management is also becoming increasingly important in order to position yourself on the market.
2. evaluates the existing skills
Once you know which skills you need, it’s time to check which of them are already present in the team. You can find this out, for example, through employee evaluations and self-assessments by team members.
3. identifies where there are gaps
You can use a skills matrix to compare the skills you have with the skills you need. You should prioritize the resulting gaps.
4. analyzes the causes and effects of existing gaps
Examines the reasons for skill gaps. Evaluates the impact on organizational goals and performance.
5. develop an action plan
Then develop an action plan. Plan targeted training measures, hire new team members or combine the two. Set realistic goals and time frames.
Structuring processes and clarifying role responsibilities
Unclear processes and responsibilities can quickly lead to inefficiency and misunderstandings. By structuring your processes and defining clear roles, you increase transparency, simplify collaboration and create the basis for sustainable growth.
1. decide which process you want to analyze
Select a central process and set clear start and end points for the audit. Ask yourself which steps are really necessary, who is responsible for the individual tasks and how the process influences your impact. Processes can be, for example
- Production process
- Marketing process
- Purchasing process
- Sales process
- Impact management process
- Meeting process
- Feedback process
2. create a SIPOC diagram to visualize the process
You can use a SIPOC diagram to visualize and analyze your processes. It helps to identify all the important components of a process and to understand which elements contribute to success or can be improved. SIPOC stands for the following five categories:
- Suppliers: Who supplies the resources needed for the process? This could be external partners, internal departments or other stakeholders.
- Inputs: What resources, materials or information are needed to start the process?
- Process: What steps does the process go through from start to finish? The main activities are listed here in a clear sequence. There should be no more than 5–7 steps.
- Outputs (results): What is the result of the process? These can be products, services, information or other results that the process generates.
- Customer (clients): Who receives the results of the process? Examples: external customers, internal departments or other stakeholders who benefit from the outputs.
3. takes a closer look at the individual activities in the process
Document all tasks that are required to carry out the respective process. To clearly define the roles and responsibilities in the main process steps and thus increase efficiency, you can use the RACI method. RACI stands for the following four categories, which you can use to create a matrix:
- Responsible: Who is directly responsible for carrying out the task? There can be several responsible roles per task, but ideally the number should remain manageable.
- Accountable: Who has final responsibility for the task? There should only be one accountable role for each task.
- Consulted: Who is consulted when carrying out the task? The consulted role should be involved before important decisions are made.
- Informed: Who needs to be informed about the progress or results of the task? The Informed role does not have to be actively involved, but should be kept up to date.
4. check how each activity influences your impact
Everything you implement in your startup can have an impact on your social, environmental or economic impact. To ensure that you make the best use of your resources, proceed as follows:
Evaluates whether the activity has a positive or negative impact and to what extent. Use specific criteria and data for the evaluation, e.g. on a scale of 1 to 5 or by means of KPI tracking (regular measurement of key values). Together with your systems mapping from the chapter “Impact management” / LINK), you can identify undesirable side effects. This refers not only to negative effects caused by your business model, but also to your behavior in your entire value chain (see note). As soon as you discover weaknesses, develop targeted measures to eliminate them.
Note:
You can find out which criteria you can take into account for your processes in order to set up your ESG management professionally here: Welcome to ESG_VC
Reflect on your organizational culture
Your corporate culture is the backbone of your startup. It not only influences teamwork, but also how you are perceived externally. A strong, conscious culture can promote innovation, attract talent and make your vision tangible.
1. defines a set of values
Think about which values are important to you (e.g. honesty, sustainability, innovation) and how you can reconcile these with your startup. Organize workshops or brainstorming sessions with your team to jointly develop values that are relevant to everyone. This promotes acceptance and strengthens employees’ identification with the values. Select 3 to 5 core values that should shape your organizational culture. These should be specifically tailored to your startup.
2. outlines a target culture
Analyze the current state of your current organizational culture — e.g. through anonymous surveys, feedback discussions and interviews with your employees. And then think about what your target culture should look like: This refers to the culture you strive for in order to achieve your vision and goals in the best possible way. The target culture describes what collaboration, values and behaviors should look like in your startup.
Ask yourselves: Where do we want to go? What should change? What makes strategic sense?
Takes into account the business strategy, the business environment and current challenges. Identify strengths of the current culture that should be retained and weaknesses that need to be improved. You can use the keep-start-stop method for this:
- Keep: What should be retained?
- Start: What should be started?
- Stop: What should be stopped?
3. operationalize your organizational culture
Translates the defined values and the target culture into concrete behaviors and decision-making guidelines that can be lived in everyday life (e.g. “sustainability” means: preferred cooperation with environmentally friendly suppliers). Decisions should always be aligned with the values and adapted to changing circumstances. Develop a clear vision for your target culture, e.g: “Together we will create a feedback-oriented and innovation-friendly corporate culture.”
You need measurable goals to be able to monitor progress towards your target culture. You can formulate them with the help of the S.M.A.R.T. method:
The indicators should
- Specific: Clearly defined and unambiguous
- Measurable: Quantifiable
- Attractive: Relevant for your target
- Realistic: Achievable with available resources
- Scheduled: Limited in time
be.
Next step: Measure KPIs
You have started to prepare your team for the growth phase of your start-up, developed efficient structures and processes and laid the foundations for a stable organizational culture.
Before you move on to measuring KPIs and creating a reference scenario, you should develop a plan for the economic growth (LINK 1) of your startup and optimize your impact management (LINK 2).