Metvy

Business Program
Operations Compendium
Do you want to hear the cold, hard truth? 9 out of 10 startups are set to fail before they
can even make money. Now while this is the reality you have to wake up from, it’s
certainly not a fixed and unchangeable outcome for your entrepreneurial venture. Your
success or failure will not rely upon the historical data and industry statistics, but from
how well you manage daily operations.
Here are five tips for assuming better command over your startup operations:

Consolidate and Negotiate.

You can save a lot of startup capital by consolidating expenses and negotiating for
better prices with your suppliers. For instance, a portion of your budget for direct
mail services per year can be cut significantly if you decide to bundle in your print
and mailing house services to one provider. This not only saves money but lessens
the things you need to keep track of as well. Once you’ve negotiated initial prices for
inventory orders, make it a point to renegotiate frequently, especially for businesses
that underwent through a recent growth surge, something that allows you to demand
better pricing from your business partners.

Measure Every Detail of

Your Startup.
Knowing precise metrics about your business is prudent business management. It’s
especially important if you are trying to manage finances and balance cash flows. Drill
down on your numbers and get every detail right. According to an article published by
Forbes, metrics that play a critical role in anystartup management includes revenue
run rate, average revenue per user, customer acquisition rate, churn rate, and operation
efficiency. Depending on the space you operate in and the size of your startup, you
may need to bring in additional metrics to get more accurate information.
Be Involved in Training
and Hiring.
Startups have the advantage of having fewer employees than larger companies
that have 100 or more under their payroll. This means you can give each employee
more of your time and focus. Be involved with your employee’s professional growth
by having them trained through in-house programs and workshops, giving advice
and mentorship when possible, and giving them enough recovery time throughout
the work week. When hiring, you should also be present instead of having your
HR department or employees interview for you. Ask about their competencies,
experiences, and other related data that can add to their credentials for the job
position.

Implement the Right Tech.

Startups are commonly associated with technology, and for good reason. The rise
of startups ushered in a new era of unprecedented technological advancements
in different spaces. And as more technology got introduced to the markets, more
startups popped up. A must-have tech is case management software.PNMsoft defines
case management software as technology dedicated for real-time work allocation in
operations centers. It consolidates all relevant data including contacts, calendars, cases,
projects, documents, schedules, and billing.
Secure Your Sensitive Data.
Because of a loose business structure, many startups are prone to data breaches and
malware attacks. Moreover, since startups have limited capital to work with, few can
afford to invest in high-end data backups, anti-malware protection, and 24/7 cyber
security protection services. If you don’t have the budget, make sure to implement
proper safety protocols to increase the layer of security for your data. This includes but
is not limited to requiring employees to change their account passwords at least every
month, disposing physical and digital copies of data appropriately, and using Firewall
and other free or cheap security tools available.

Startups can be a pain to manage, especially during the first few months where the
company is vulnerable to almost anything it comes into contact with. Nevertheless, it
is a worthwhile business to pursue. Use the five tips above to improve your chances of
survival in the startup world and perhaps even some day exit a unicorn startup with a
serious wad of cash in your pocket.
The Business Operations
Playbook: How to
implement ops in your
startup
Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links, meaning I receive a commission if you
decide to make a purchase through my links, but this is at no additional cost to you.
If you’re part of a fast growing startup it can sometimes feel like your job is to help
add floors to a never ending skyscraper.

I like the comparison between building a large structure and working at a startup since
it fits nicely with my experience at my previous company.

At a hyper growth stage startup you have different teams working together to build
a bigger and stronger asset (or set of assets) for the organization, similarly to a team
constructing a skyscraper.

If you’re part of such an organization then you may get the feeling every now and then
that, as you add more floors to the building, no one is making sure that our skyscraper
has a solid foundation. The business unit responsible for addressing this concern is
business operations.

Making sure the organization has efficient processes, the right tools, and enough data
to work with are some of the responsibilities of business operations.
The goal of this post is to give you the information you need to add business operations
to your startup today.
Table of Contents
• What is business operations and do I really need to invest in it at my startup?
• Getting started with business operations
o Step #1 – Make a commitment
o Step #2 – Decide on your model and teams
The different business operations responsibilities
One model to consider – The Hybrid Model
o Step #3 – Find your business operations champion
o Step #4 – Perform an operations audit and start hiring
- Audit of the tools being used by the organization
- Perform a data audit
- Start hiring your first senior business analyst
- Department needs and wish lists
- Cross-department handshakes
- Bring it all together
o Build a road map
- Hiring Plan
- Data infra plan
- Data warehouse plan
- Process projects plan
- Tool reorganization plan
- Communicate the road map to senior management
o Get to work building your business operations
What is business ope
operations
ations
and do I really
eally need to
invest
est in it at my startup?
startu
artup?
The goal of business operations is to help the organization
ganization get more value
alue from it’s
assets. These assets include human capital, the tools used by tthe organization, and
ganization, a
data being collected.

In other words your business operations team’s responsibility

y is to make your company
more efficient.

Let’s say that you have a marketing manager in your company. Let’s
et imagine this
manager spends a day a week preparing reports for a weekly meeti
meeting on the
performance of the marketing department.

Now imagine this manager is earning $150,000 a year. One day a week equals 20% of
that employees time which equates to a cost of $30,000 to your business every year.
I’m sure you’d agree that $30,000 is a premium to pay for such an outcome and you’re
better off dropping that cost.

This is only one example but I’m sure you could come up with 10 examples in a few
minutes on how your organization could run more efficiently.

Imagine having a team of specialists actively searching out these inefficiencies and
helping you drop these costs. How much extra resources would your organization have
if these efficiencies are eliminated?
Getting started with
business operations
If you’re an early stage startup which wants to start investing in business operations
then you should follow the recipe I’ve laid out for you below.

1. Make a commitment
2. Decide on your model and teams
3. Find your business operations champion
4. Perform an operations audit and start hiring
5. Build a road map
6. Get to work

Step #1 – Make a
commitment
The first thing you need to do before you can get started building out your operations
is to make a commitment to the effort.

Building out a fully functioning business operations unit within a company is not a
small feat. Adding business operations to a company costs a lot of money and time
and there will be ups and downs like any major effort.

Expect to wait 4 – 12 months before seeing significant returns on investment and once
you get started, it will be an ongoing effort with continues investment. You’ll need to
hire experienced individuals for complex roles and invest in their personal growth and
career paths.

Building out business operations is a major commitment and you need to be all-in or
all-out.
Step #2 – Decide on your
model and teams
This step is more complicated than it seems. There are a number of different
approaches that you can take to build out your business operations.

I’m sure there are more models but I’ve listed the models I’ve seen in my career in the
list below:

• Centralized Model – One department with different teams serving the

organization.
• Decentralized Model – Different teams serving the organization, no formal
business operations department.
• Departmental Operations – Each department has its’ own operations
individuals. These individuals are part of their respective departments. No
centralized operations department.
• Hybrid Model – Combination of centralized and departmental operations. Some
ops employees belong to the department, others are in their own team under
business operations.
operations responsibilities
There are a number of ways to divide up your responsibilities of your business
operations personnel.

From a high level you can divide the responsibilities into the following:

• Business intelligence – Help the organization become more data-driven. Your

business and/or data analysts will lead this effort and work closely with R&D.
• Departmental operations – Help specific departments with their operational
needs (think marketing automation in the marketing department, and
prioritization and workflow in the support team).
• System administration – Administration of any company-wide tools or systems.
A common use case is CRM management.
• Cross departmental initiatives – Project management of projects involving
multiple departments. An example would be the marketing-sales handshake or
building a feedback loop between customer success and the product team.

There is a lot to consider when deciding on which model and teams you want to
use. You will want to get feedback and buy-in from your different VPs and see which
approach works best for your culture and organization structure.

Since you will be starting from scratch you also need to decide which departments or
projects you want to focus on first. I’ll discuss how to handle this in the section on the
operations audit below.
One model to consider –
The Hybrid Model
Below is one possible model for you to consider. This was how the operations were
structured at my previous company.

We had two business operations teams, Business Intelligence (we called it the Business
Performance Team) and the SalesForce Admin Team.

These teams reported directly to the COO. These two business operations teams were
neutral, non-biased and had the responsibility of serving the entire organization.

In addition to these two teams, each department had its’ own operations specialists
which worked very closely with the two operations teams. These ops specialists were
members of their respective departments and directly reported to the VPs of these
departments.
The two business operations teams served all the major departments. These teams
were neutral and reported directly to the COO.

Cross-departmental initiatives were usually jointly owned by the BI and SF Admin

teams or just under the ownership of the BI team.

This model worked well but every model has its’ own pros and cons which you’ll need
to balance against.

One major advantage of this model is the fact that the two business ops teams are
directly under the COO which was important to establish a single source of truth for
operational metrics and processes.

By centralizing these two teams there was more information and skills being
transferred between the team members.

Notice that this model doesn’t have a VP of Business Operations. This was one major
weakness in this model. I recommend finding your business operations champion that
will be responsible for pushing the business operations vision forward.

Step #3 – Find your business

operations champion
Congrats, you’ve made the decision to invest in building out business operations.

The first major step is to find a champion that can lead this effort. There are a few ways
to go about this.

The right move might be to hire a VP of Business Operations. This is usually a timely
and expensive step and I would ]recommend considering an alternative approach.
That approach is to give the responsibility to an existing employee.
Take a second to think who in your company could fit this role and if no one
immediately pops in your head then start looking for your champion in the market.
The right individual is someone who is very technical, data-driven, a natural problem
solver and very familiar with your type of business. Strong project management skills,
good with people and high EQ are also critical traits.

This individual should report directly to either the CEO, CTO, or COO.
Once you’ve found your champion it is critical that you lay out their mandate as clearly
as possible. Communicate your vision and what you expect to see over the next 1, 3, 6
and 12 months. Map out how you see the ops in terms of teams, responsibilities and
consumers.

Below are some q g to focus on first?

• How many analysts, system admins and ops specialists do we need now? How
many in 12 months from now?
• How many analysts, system admins and ops specialists can we afford?
• Do we want to hire juniors or seniors?
• What are the major milestones for business ops over the next 12 months?

Once you’ve laid all the details on the table the champion can get to work on auditing
the business and building the relevant teams.
Step #4 – Perform an
operations audit and start
hiring
The next steps for your champion are to audit the business and start hiring a senior
business analyst.

The reason your champion needs to do an audit of the business is to allow you both
to understand the current state of the business in terms of operational efficiency. The
audit should include the following:

• Audit of the tools being used by the organization

• A data audit
• Departmental needs and wish lists
• Cross-department handshakes

Audit of the tools being

used by the organization
Now is a good time for someone to map out the different tools being used in the
organization. The audit should try and answer the following questions:

• Which tools are the company paying for?

• Do these tools have assigned owners?
• Are these tools being utilized as expected?
• which tools can we stop using?
You want to be sensitive here since people get attached to their tools. It is important to
understand that this stage of the process is for information gathering. You want to get
a big picture view of how the company is functioning, not to sway opinions.

The idea behind this step is to map out the tools in the company so together with your
champion you can build a plan to optimize the usage of these tools or to get rid of
some of them altogether.

Perform a data audit

Part of the audit should include mapping out your stake holders and who is covered
in terms of available data.

I’ve written extensively on how to perform afull data audit of your startup. This is a
critical step in the audit since a lot of effort in the first 12 months will go towards filling
in gaps in your BI infrastructure.

A good tip is to use a tool likeLucidchart to map out your company’s data silos and
gaps. You will need to involve a lot of people in this stage of the operations audit but
take your time and map out all the necessary details.

Filling in the data gaps will be a major expense for the company. In order to build a
comprehensive road map it’s important to understand the priority of these gaps and
the costs involved in filling them in.
business analyst
A very strong senior business analyst will make all the difference in the world to your
progress building out your business operations.

The truth is that building out business operations is a major challenge and your
champion can’t do it alone.

A senior analyst will be able to take on a lot of responsibility and act as both an analyst
and project manager.

This individual can help with hiring the next analyst (preferably another senior analyst),
help with better understanding the data gaps, and even some CRM admin work.

You need more of a generalist at this stage of the process and a strong senior analyst is
a better fit than a system admin or project manager.

Depending on the job market in your part of the world it can take anywhere from 1
month to 6 months to find a strong senior analyst so keep that in mind.

This position is critical since it will set the pace of theBI team and your operations
efforts in general. Take your time and make sure you hire a superstar. Here are some
great business analyst interview questions to help you out. You should also check out
my detailed guide on how to hire your first business analyst.
Department needs and
wish lists
The next step in the audit is for your champion to meet with the different VPs of the
major departments and ask them about their operational needs.

This step should help identify the biggest pain points for each major stakeholder.
Addressing these pain points will help get buy-in and support so instruct your
champion to pay attention and write everything down.

Make sure that he uses this opportunity to explain the vision and what you plan to
achieve. Make sure he emphasizes that it will take time to implement the vision and
that a lot of patience will be needed.

Cross-department
handshakes
During the interviews with the VPs questions about cross-department handshakes
and other important processes should be asked. Your champion should map these out
and assess how they are working today.

Cross-department processes are usually full of issues and difficult to optimize. These
processes will become a major focal point in the future so now is a good time to get a
overall picture of these handshakes.
Bring it all together
The ops audit will most likely take 1 to 3 weeks to complete.

Once completed you and your champion should block off 2 – 4 hours to go over the
audit. The goal is for you to get a high-level understand of where the company is in
terms of operations and to start building a operations road map.

Build a road map

At this stage you should have all the information you need to start building a road map
with your champion. This road map will become the main action plan for the next 6 to
12 months. The goal should be to use this first road map to get the necessary building
blocks in place so that you can start scaling the operations.

You also want to get the team to the point where it’s no longer reactionary but instead
proactive in how it provides its services.

This road map should include the following themes:

• Hiring plan – Which roles do we need to fill in now, in 6 months, in 12 months,

etc.
• Data infra plan – A clear road map to fill in the necessary data gaps
• Data warehouse plan – A plan to establish a data warehouse
• Process projects plan – A list of projects relating to key processes that need
attention
• Tool reorganization plan – A plan to change the usage and ownership of specific
tools in the company
Hiring Plan
It depends entirely on the size, type, organizational
ganizational structure a
and culture
ture
e of your
company but you should aim to try and hire e a small number of veryy strong ops people
in the first 12 months.

If you have the budget then let 2 or 3 departments startt loo

looking ffor operations
or senior ope
specialists or senior analysts (depending on your model).
odel). ThThe champion
hampion sh should be
involved to help determine if candidates match the criteria and expectations
ia a tations of tthe
roles.

If you can bring in team leads or directors for each of the ops tteams (once again, it
ams (o
depends entirely on the model you want to build) then these individuals
ndividuals can help lead
efforts in their respective areas, including hiring.

If you want to start small then start with your BI and system admin
dmin teams. These teams
can serve all the departments and you can later transition to department-only or
o a depa
hybrid model.

Data infra plan

The data infra plan involves building out an action plan to fill in critical data gaps in
your company’s infrastructure. This usually involves implementing new tracking tools,
collecting new data, and even major changes to database schemas.

This plan can take many months to complete, depending on the majority and BI-
friendliness of your product’s data infrastructure.

A strong R&D team can make all the difference here.

Data warehouse plan
A company which makes to be data-driven needs a data warehouse. This is a major
project that involves either hiring data engineers or using outside consultants.

The data warehouse project should be led by a strong project manager with
experience in this area. If needed you should bring on a consultant to assist you.

Process projects plan

Your operations road map should include some projects related to improving certain
business processes. These processes don’t necessary have to be cross-departmental
but you should focus on the processes which are having the biggest impact on the
business.

The idea here is for your champion to use one of his analysts to investigate the process
and see how it can be optimized. The goal should be to only focus on processes which
if improved, will have a major impact on the business.

Tool reorganization plan

The tool reorganization plan is the least important part of the road map. With that
being said there are often a lot of low hanging fruit improvements which can be made
with minimal effort.

Focus on the tools which affect the most people and cost the most to the company.

All your major tools should have clear owners and these owners should have an
incentive to improve their expertise with these tools. This will help improve the ROI
from each tool.
Communicate the road map
to senior management
Once the road map is completed your champion should schedule meetings with
senior managers to communicate the plan. This will help with getting support,
valuable feedback, and to set expectations.

This is an important step so don’t skip it.

Get to work building your

business operations
Now that the road map is completed and your champion and VPs understand what
needs to get done it is time to get to work.

I want to emphasize that going from no operations to a team of experts actively

improving the efficiency of your company will take time, money and a ton of patience.

Below is a list of 10 tips that will help make the first year as smooth as possible:

1. Do what is needed to get your BI up and running as quickly as possible. You

ops specialists will need to rely more and more on data and you can alleviate a
lot of frustration by investing heavily in your BI early on.

2. If your champion lacks experience then consider finding him a mentor. This can
make a massive difference to the effectiveness of your champion to get the job
done.

3. Make sure the different ops specialists are close. Make sure your HR understand
that even though the ops specialists are in different teams and/or departments,
they are all part of the same business function.
4. The role of an operations specialist is very complex. You want to hire very strong
candidates that are technical, good with people, organized, intelligent and hard
working. Take your time with hiring for these roles.

5. Some managers will get jealous and impatient. As the CEO / COO, you will need
to step in and make sure that your managers are respecting the vision and
model.

6. If you run a global organization your champion and operations specialists will
need to travel quite a bit. Set a travel schedule which makes sense for all parties
involved.

7. There will be conflict between product and operations when it comes to filling
in data gaps. The reason is that R&D resources are limited and each ops task will
take away from product’s resources. You need to explain the importance of
filling in these gaps to all parties. You will need to either scale R&D or make
sacrifices on the product end.

8. If your company is pre-seed then don’t even bother thinking about operations,
it’s too early.

9. If your company is pre-product market fit then focus on BI to help product better

understand product usage and don’t bother with anything else relating to
operations, it’s not a priority.

10. If your company is in hyper growth mode then focus first on marketing and sales
(growth), then client success (retention) and lastly product and finance.