1. Start-Up Strategy
2. Matt Kelly Joins ZURB
3. ZURB is Podcasting
4. Social Marketing

As I knelt on the sidewalk, wrench in hand, thoughts of my own childhood came rushing to my mind. Memories of my Dad helping me pedal down the street joined together with the new feelings I was having as I removed the training wheels from my oldest son's bicycle.

This weekend was the first time my first son was attempting to ride his bike without the safety net that training wheels provide. In that simple moment, I realized that he was no longer my little baby but was instead, a boy who was rapidly growing up and would not need my help forever.

It's rewarding as a parent to see your kids grow, but with it comes that bittersweet sense of losing your baby. And in many ways, our businesses are like our babies. They start out needing virtually round-the-clock attention and constant care. Think about your average start-up—there are lots of bleary-eyed late nights and even a few tears shed as the business is getting off the ground. Not to mention a whole lot of mistakes being made along the way by Mom and Dad.

But then, like a helpless baby turning into an adventurous toddler and then a cautious but still curious child, businesses (and the people who run them) must evolve. Trying to treat your established business like a start-up is about as effective as treating your 5' 10" teenage son like a toddler. The key to having a successful start-up is knowing when it's no longer a start-up, but instead a young-but-established business.

Start-Up Strategy: What to Do When Your Business is Growing Up

Most business owners and entrepreneurs are good at creating things under tough constraints—there's nothing like having no help and a tiny budget to get the creative juices flowing. But the day-to-day management of an established business offers a new set of challenges. Often, it's difficult for entrepreneurs to understand the appropriate time to shift from start-up management to young-but-established business operations.

Is it time to take off your company's training wheels? It just may be. Having helped dozens of start-ups (and as a former start-up ourselves!) we've found a few common signs that it's time to get out the wrench and tweak the way you're thinking about and operating your business:

1. Your company is cash-flow positive

Becoming cash-flow positive is (or it certainly should be) one of the most important goals of every business. Having positive cash flow allows more flexibility in how the company manages the business. Once you've reached this milestone, the strategy switches from getting to cash-flow positive to managing growth while staying in the black. Most businesses will go in and out of debt, but once you've reached profitability, it's really hard to shift the company strategy back into high growth mode. The company you build around your product or service will need different skills based on its maturity.

2. You need full-time employees who are specialists

To get a start-up off the ground, you may need the help of consultants to support the basic infrastructure of the company. But once the business is established, you're going to need to hire specific roles to manage the day-to-day operations. Costs will go up, but it provides an important foundation to build systems and processes around a core team. It's time to hire employees when an entrepreneurs' time is being consumed by managing external people not core to the businesses service or product.

3. You're investing in your culture

Longer term relationships are critical for the success of any business. Without a core point of view, vendors, customers and employees will have a harder time committing to the business. Most people understand there will be problems in a start-up, but are willing to be flexible in order to take advantage of a new service or product. Once a business is established, people expect more value and fewer problems. Process does not solve the ongoing organizational problems a company faces—it's the business culture that keeps things cranking. When an entrepreneur is spending more time creating processes to fix routine mistakes, it's time to invest in building a culture that empowers employees to solve problems on their own.

Matt Kelly Joins ZURB

Our our search for a developer has ended with the hire of Matt Kelly, new guy and resident nerd. We're extremely happy Matt joined the team. Matt will be providing ZURB the necessary brain power and coding skills to help us launch our new product. Learn more about Matt.

That's right—you didn't misread that sentence above—we did say our new product. After ten years of devoting ourselves to the craft of interaction design and strategy consulting, we've made a strategic decision to expand our service offerings to include online software to help companies use our methods and processes. We feel it's an extension of ZURB that our existing clients will find valuable and prospective customers will find irresistible. If you're interested in learning more about our product, shoot Hunter (getstarted@zurb.com) an email.

ZURB is Podcasting

A growing business can create frustration if there is no time for skunk works projects—you know, the ones dreamed up over a beer and chips. Those back burner projects can only happen when: a) they're supported by the business and b) someone takes the initiative to make them happen.

It's incredibly rewarding to see two of our skunk work projects finally get off the ground—simultaneously, no less.

ZURBsoapbox + Podcast

The ZURBsoapbox lecture series is a new ZURB venture where we invite entrepreneurs, designers, managers, movers, shakers and friends of ZURB to speak to a like-minded audience and take part in a lively discussion with them afterward. Project number two riffs off of the ZURBsoapbox idea—it's a podcast that we put together from the events. Kudos to Jeremy for pulling this together.

Read about the event and download the podcast »

Social Marketing

After ten plus years of business, you'd think we would have invested more in our marketing effort. Besides a few events and this newsletter, we haven't done much "marketing." As for advertising, we spent about $50 on adwords in 2001 and then stopped. Ours is not a strategy we'd recommend, but it's a testament to the power of the word of mouth recommendations we get.

As we expand our service offerings, we're also expanding our reach with social marketing. The core of our efforts will be focused on education—it's less about forcing messages on people and more about helping them solve problems around interaction design and strategy. There's a proliferation of social networks, which makes it easier for companies to share their knowledge and be rewarded for it.

You can follow ZURB on Flickr, Twitter, and Delicious. Let us know how we're doing and feel free to shoot us feedback on topics you might like to learn about. You can also follow me personally on Twitter (@bryanzmijewski).