How to Scale

In episode 9 of Frog’s How to Scale podcast, Senior Partner Steven Dunne speaks with Frog Operating Partner, Andrew Betteley and Frog’s Head of Marketing at Frog, Dominic Rodgers, about our recent experience of building an AI search engine. With the speed at which AI capabilities has been advancing in the last couple of years, the landscape of what is possible is constantly changing. This means that it is hard to know how best to approach utilising AI technologies in your business and how to execute them effectively. Having developed a customised large language model (LLM) trained exclusively on Frog’s extensive library of toolkits, podcasts, videos, and articles, Andrew and Dominic discuss their own experiences, the challenges of the process, why they have done it, and how businesses should approach using AI both operationally and within their product(s). Andrew is an experienced CTO with over 20 years’ experience in software development in companies from startup through investment, private equity and onto exit. Dominic has over 15 years’ experience in content strategy, sales and marketing, working across publishing, technology, and financial services. He produces the Frog Operating Partners’ How to Scale toolkits, podcasts and articles, helping software leaders overcome the challenges they face through scale-up. In this episode we cover 3 focus areas: * The vision – What are the reasons for deciding to use AI and how do you decide upon the vision for your application. * Ensuring integrity – Many AI technologies have been employed without great success. How can you manage the process to ensure your end-result has integrity and matches your company’s values. * Lessons learnt through the process – When and how to start using AI, what to look out for when managing an AI deployment project and avoiding the pitfalls involved. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

In the new episode of Frog's How to Scale podcast, we are proud to introduce Amanda Stainton [https://frogcapital.com/profile/amanda-stainton/], Frog's new Operating Partner focused on People and Culture. Amanda has spent the last 18 months contributing to due diligence projects and supporting some of Frog's portfolio companies. She has over 30 years' experience leading people and culture teams across a wide range of blue chip businesses and is now focused on the importance of people and culture in the growth stage. The People and Culture function is a strategically important part of Scale-Up alongside Product, Sales, Tech, Marketing and Finance provided it is executed properly. Far from pink and fluffy. The critical success factor is how it is aligned and integrated with the business as a whole. Initiatives have to show value and benefit and be clearly linked to business objectives. Amanda covers 3 key focus areas in the podcast to help Scale-Ups get the best out of People and Culture initiatives, which are: * Culture – how do we design the culture, understand what it has been and what it needs to be – People and Culture teams are the custodians and ensure synergy and consistency, but leadership deliver it. Values need to be documented, explained, displayed and lived * How to attract and retain people – robust processes are required. Recruitment can be very time consuming, and rightly so – businesses and talent need to choose each other and do it well. Investing time improves diversity, which is a catalyst for strong performance * Performance management – managed fairly and consistently to help people achieve their potential and develop a sense of fairness across a business, not overly bureaucratic, but still robust. Set clear expectations, get and give feedback, and find opportunities to develop and grow We cover these topics and many others extensively in How to Scale, Frog’s library of Scale-Up insights created over the last 5 years, including further episodes of the podcast and Scale-Up toolkits from our other Frog Operating Partners. Try our new AI search engine to ask your Scale-Up questions and get a tailored response generated from our Operating Partners' toolkits, podcasts, articles and videos. Ask a question [https://frogcapital.com/how-to-scaleai/] Subscribe [https://frogcapital.com/podcast/] to our podcast or follow us on LinkedIn [http://linkedin.com/company/frog-capital] to ensure you never miss a new episode. We welcome all feedback, questions or topic suggestions for us to cover in future episodes, so please email us. We’d love to hear from you. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

In season 2, episode 7 of Frog’s How to Scale podcast, Senior Partner Mike Reid [https://www.linkedin.com/in/themikereid/] speaks with Scale-Up CEO, Sebastien Blanc [https://www.linkedin.com/in/seblanc/], about the mindset of a company builder. Sebastien is a two time Software Scale-Up CEO. He is responsible for transforming the performance of two software companies from loss-making to profitability whilst maintaining steady growth. Sebastien was the CEO of Skimlinks, a former Frog Capital [www.frogcapital.com/]portfolio company, where he achieved 100% year on year growth with strong EBITDA margin. In our conversation we discuss the three elements of company building: the operating system, capital allocation and getting the right team in place, including: * Growth and customer satisfaction - the value of normalised metrics like net promoter score * Why a revenue machine is more than a sales team and how to make it repeatable, scalable, predictable * Great companies have 2 thirds of leads inbound and the importance of a good content strategy * How outbound go to market strategies can lead to long decision cycle and too much to do by customers * Product should be a customer facing role, with customer discovery and validation * Refounding the business when it's time for transformation and when you have the right people the change takes care of itself * Dynamic capital allocation using early positive and negative signals We cover these topics and many others extensively in How to Scale [https://frogcapital.com/scale-up/], Frog’s library of Scale-Up insights, including further episodes of the podcast and Scale-Up toolkits from our Frog Operating Partners. Subscribe to our podcast or follow us on Linkedin [https://www.linkedin.com/company/frog-capital/] to ensure you never miss a new episode. We welcome all feedback, questions or topic suggestions for us to cover in future episodes, so please email us [howtoscale@frogcapital.com]. We’d love to hear from you. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

In the 6th episode of the second season of Frog’s How to Scale podcast, Senior Partner Mike Reid speaks with Kimberly Baker of Evotix, about putting the right people and structures in place to rapidly deliver value and achieve customer success.   Kimberly is currently Chief Customer Officer at Evotix, a former Frog Capital portfolio company. She is responsible for championing customer needs, leading strategies that improve the overall customer experience, fostering cross-departmental collaboration, and cultivating a customer-centric culture. Her focus is on enhancing customer satisfaction, retention, and company growth by ensuring that the customer remains a focal point in all business decisions and operations.   In our conversation we cover: * Getting the right people on the bus, in the right seats * Building a culture focused on customer success rather than sales targets * Introducing 'Squads' to develop ownership and eliminating silos * Analysing the customer journey to highlight areas for improvement * 2 KPIs to track customer success * Using the 'five box grid' to globally assess every employee's development   We cover these topics and many others extensively in How to Scale [https://frogcapital.com/scale-up/], Frog’s library of Scale-Up insights, including further episodes of the podcast and Scale-Up toolkits from our Frog Operating Partners. Subscribe to our podcast or follow us on Linkedin [https://www.linkedin.com/company/frog-capital/] to ensure you never miss a new episode. We welcome all feedback, questions or topic suggestions for us to cover in future episodes, so please email us [howtoscale@frogcapital.com]. We’d love to hear from you. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

In the 5th episode of the second season of Frog’s How to Scale podcast, Operating Partner James Bagan speaks with John Lord, serial chair, investor and advisor to scale up businesses, about structuring processes to enable successful sales scale-up.   John is currently chair at Red Flag Alert, Tred and Engage PSG Search, focusing on steering these companies through their scale-up journeys. He previously founded TruNarrative in 2016 until their successful acquisition in 2021. Prior to that he was Group Managing Director at GBG Plc, helping to take the business from a valuation of £18M to a listing on AIM of £1Billion.    In our conversation we cover: * The importance and value of process * Understanding the difference between KPIs and Standard Operating Procedures * Implementing Minimum Standard Operating Procedures to enable effective sales * Adopting a sales playbook to deliver Minimum Standard Operating Procedures * The criticality of discovery in the sales process * Utilising high gain and low gain questions to get closer to the customer * Nature versus nurture in sales people   We cover these topics and many others extensively in How to Scale [https://frogcapital.com/scale-up/], Frog’s library of Scale-Up insights, including further episodes of the podcast and Scale-Up toolkits from our Frog Operating Partners. Subscribe to our podcast or follow us on Linkedin [https://www.linkedin.com/company/frog-capital/] to ensure you never miss a new episode. We welcome all feedback, questions or topic suggestions for us to cover in future episodes, so please email us [howtoscale@frogcapital.com]. We’d love to hear from you. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.