How to Scale

In Episode 11 of Frog's How to Scale podcast, we rejoin Senior Partner Mike Reid and Phill Robinson for Part 2 of our conversation about the critical components of building, scaling, and sustaining market-leading companies.

With over 35 years in the software industry, Phill has held pivotal leadership roles, including CEO of IRIS Software Group and Exact Software in the Netherlands, and CMO at Salesforce.com. Now the founder and CEO of Boardwave, a networking community for European software CEOs and investors, Phill offers a wealth of insights drawn from decades of industry experience.

In part 1 Phill talked about the European Software ecosystem and the importance of sharing culture, knowledge and ideas to help more businesses scale faster, followed by a deeper dive into his experience in product.

In part 2 Phill talks about:

• The difference between management and leadership
• Executive team diversity
• The power of simple strategy focusing on core customers

We pick up from part 1 with Phill talking about struggling with what we’d now call burnout.

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In episode 10, we are delighted to bring you a special two-part episode of Frog’s How to Scale podcast. Senior Partner Mike Reid sits down with veteran software leader and founder of Boardwave, Phill Robinson.Phill and Mike discuss the critical components of building, scaling, and sustaining market-leading companies, with the first part focusing on software and the second part on strategy.

With over 35 years in the software industry, Phill has held pivotal leadership roles, including CEO of IRIS Software Group and Exact Software in the Netherlands, and CMO at Salesforce.com. Now the founder and CEO of Boardwave, a networking community for European software CEOs and investors, Phill offers a wealth of insights drawn from decades of industry experience.

Part 1 covers:

• Product Leadership – Phill affirms that at the core of any successful software company lies a robust, customer-focused product. Achieving product-market fit and continually addressing customer needs are essential for growth
• Scaling at Speed – From expanding in competitive U.S. and European markets, Phill discusses how rapid growth demands adaptable leadership. He explores the importance of evolving both teams and strategies to scale effectively
• Balancing Leadership and Management – Shifting from hands-on management to strategic delegation, Phill explains how fostering team independence enables growth while maintaining a vision-focused leadership style

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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.

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In the new episode of Frog's How to Scale podcast, we are proud to introduce 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.

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Subscribe to our podcast or follow us on LinkedIn 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.

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In season 2, episode 7 of Frog’s How to Scale podcast, Senior Partner Mike Reid speaks with Scale-Up CEO, Sebastien Blanc, 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 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, 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 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.

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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, 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 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.

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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, 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 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.

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In the 4th episode of the second season of Frog’s How to Scale podcast, Senior Partner Mike Reid speaks with Dawn Marriott, Partner at Hg Capital, about effectively developing the leadership team as you progress through the different stages of scale-up.

Dawn focuses on the CEO community at Hg Capital, driving growth and operational effectiveness within their portfolio. She acts as a serial Exec Chair with a particular emphasis on driving change, growth and C suite succession. Previously she headed up Hg’s Portfolio team and was CEO in Hg investments Kinapse and Azets. Prior to that she was Group COO at Capita plc; where she was part of the team for almost 20 years who grew the business to being one of the largest companies in the UK at that time.

In our conversation we cover:

• The right skillsets for different stages of growth
• Confident leadership through difficult conversations
• The Scars and Stripes Brigade - Building an experienced network you can trust for guidance
• Building out the right team by identifying blind spots
• Asking for feedback to grow self-awareness in your team
• Authenticity and kindness when exiting people
• The chair as a tool to help the CEO be successful
• Communicating your purpose effectively to find the right fit when recruiting

We cover these topics and many others extensively in How to Scale, 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 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.

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In the 3rd episode of the second season of Frog’s How to Scale podcast, Senior Partner Steven Dunne speaks with Matthew Elson, CEO of Evotix, about how entrepreneurs can create a purposeful business that builds sustainable profitability through the scaling journey.

Matthew has been CEO at Evotix since buying the business for £1 in 2011 and has continuously grown 30-40% year-on-year under Matthew’s leadership, transforming how companies manage Health, Safety & Risk, and engaging with their employees to deliver safe, nurturing and compliant workplaces. Frog invested in Evotix in January 2020 when they had reached £6m ARR and were acquired in May 2023 by which time they had reached profitability and passed £20m ARR.

In our conversation we cover:

• The use of unit economics and the ‘Rule of 40’ to monitor performance
• Tracking gross retention to ensure you are building a profitable customer base
• Splitting the business in two, where the margins from the profitable customer base funds the growth of the loss-making part acquiring new customers
• Using recurring revenue per full time employee as a key metric for driving long term sustainable profitability
• Entering new markets as a value creation strategy
• Investing in operational capability to avoid bottlenecks and add value
• Fulfilling purpose in the business to drive long-term growth
• Selecting an acquisition partner with aligned values

We cover these topics and many others extensively in How to Scale, 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 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.

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In the 2nd episode of the second season of Frog’s How to Scale podcast, Senior Partner Mike Reid speaks with Dale Murray CBE about how entrepreneurs can work as effectively as possible with their boards and how they can mentor and coach their own senior teams to collaborate at board level.

Dale is an experienced board director to global technology businesses and a successful tech entrepreneur. She is currently on the board for 6 companies, including Xero, the cloud accountancy software business. Earlier in her career, Dale co-founded Omega Logic which launched mobile phone “top-ups” in the UK in 2001. Within 5 years their gross transaction revenue reached £450m p.a. and she completed the sale of the company to First Data Corporation.

In our conversation we cover:

• How should entrepreneurs approach introducing and working with a board?

• Building relationships inside and outside the boardroom

• Shifting from ‘reporting’ to collaborating

• Utilising the board’s experience to spot weaknesses and threats

• Communicating effectively to ensure trust is built between all parties

• Using the chair as a bridge between the board and the management team

• Ensuring alignment of your company’s values with the board

Dale also shares some of her own boardroom experiences from her time as an entrepreneur.

We cover these topics and many others extensively in How to Scale, 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 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.

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