Scaling Business for Profitable Growth

We started our company ProCloud AG from scratch, an IT startup with 0 customers. Ten years later we are welcoming our 500th customer. We scaled the company in an intuitive way and found out later how crucial it was not only for the success but as well for the survival of the company. With the lesson learned how important scaling is, my target was to find the best expertise on this topic to help us use our sound growth for further, and especially structured, scaling.

As a Wharton GMP student, I shouldn’t be surprised anymore, but my highlight was definitely again how practice-oriented this program was. Professor Gad Allon and his team represented Wharton’s motto “Knowledge for Action” perfectly. At the end of the course my lens was sharpened and I took several action points with me. Especially, I got valuable and personal feedback on my individual challenges in the areas of company structure, product development and KPIs.

In my personal opinion differentiating between growth and scaling and applying that to a business is one of the most important topics a successful company has.

I can highly recommend Wharton’s Scaling Ventures program for this challenge, especially for entrepreneurs and founders like me.”

Stephan Mahler CEO & Founder, ProCloud AG

I am a real estate developer and we deal with national companies that are expanding their businesses into new locations. I enrolled in Scaling Ventures for two reasons. One involves my core business — with retail shrinking, we’re thinking about how we could scale up some of the growing areas. The second reason is that I’m on the board of a couple of startups, and I wanted to more fully explore what those ventures could do.

The program was wonderful. The most valuable topics for me were Financing the Growing Business; Hiring, Leading, and Organizing for Success; and Value Creation in Fast Growth Companies. They really hit the areas of interest that I had, and I thought they were exceptional.

In the course we discussed how scaling a venture is about integrating the process of growth and sales, and got some valuable tools to assess where a business is at and how to avoid growing too fast or too slowly. My thought process had been that you just ‘go in and run as fast as you can, as long as you can,’ so it was really beneficial to discover how much of successfully scaling a venture is about timing. The principles I learned are useful for scaling up people and processes at both my real estate business and the telco software company that I’m on the board of.

Professors Gad Allon and David Wessels are all-stars in my book. Gad has the ability to translate his knowledge of technology startups and apply it effectively with business processes through growth stages of companies. David is probably the best finance teacher around. I truly appreciate his level of expertise.

Regarding the participants, the insights and conversations that happen at lunch and over a cup of coffee were very beneficial. The people that come to take these classes are an impressive group. I would recommend the course 100%.”

Tom Rocca Partner/Manager, Seven Hills Properties

I earned an MBA from Wharton in entrepreneurial management about seven years ago. Even if the Scaling Ventures course had just refreshed what I learned in my MBA, that would have been fine, but what I loved is that this was completely new. The professors weren’t just teaching the materials they teach their MBAs; the topics that were discussed, the curriculum, were truly focused on someone who was building a business and trying to scale it.

My company, Cotopaxi, is a digitally native outdoor gear retailer with the mission of inspiring adventure and moving people to do good. We use a percentage of revenues to support poverty alleviation, and we employ refugees.

Scaling Ventures allowed me to step away from the day-to-day of running my company and really reflect on what we're doing right and what we can do better. When I came back, I actually pulled in my entire executive team and shared some of the highlights from the class. We started looking more critically at areas where we’re getting the best return on capital, and we’ve made some changes based on that learning. It’s been really impactful.

One important lesson was that a lot of startups make the mistake of scaling without first going through an efficiency phase. I'm a huge believer in the concept that before you go scale, make sure that you build efficiency into the business. Another great takeaway was about hard growth versus easy growth. For example, instead of opening up a bunch of new stores — which is a relatively easy way to grow revenues but is not very capital efficient — figure out ways to make your existing stores more profitable. That goes straight to the bottom line as profit.

As a Wharton alum, there were some fun elements about being back. I already had an affinity for the school, and was very familiar with some of the Scaling Ventures professors: David Wessels, Karl Ulrich, Ethan Mollick. There were a few other Wharton alums in the class so we had an instant connection, which was great. I enjoyed being reconnected with this place that has had such a big impact on my professional career.

Gad Allon was just phenomenal. He did a great job of connecting with students. I've talked with him after the course, and he has reached out to the whole class by email a number of times. All the professors were world class, and the participants were a great mix of people running larger and smaller companies and family businesses.

I would recommend Scaling Ventures  highly to any entrepreneur who’s looking to scale their business. It was incredibly relevant and worth every minute of time I gave it. I've gone back to my notes from that class countless times, and my whole team has benefited from the lessons I learned in the course.” 

Davis Smith CEO, Cotopaxi

Scaling Ventures exceeded my expectations. That’s not just a slogan — it’s really true. It had a perfect blend for the variety of people who were there. I have a finance background — I’m a CPA with a master's in finance and business administration — and I really liked the finance part of the program. I thought it was spot on, world class. It was relevant whether you’re looking at it from an overall company perspective as a small startup or an established company, or from within a sales organization like mine.

At VMware Latin America I do strategy planning and operations and track sales performance. I’m an entrepreneur within a big company, in a way. I enrolled in Scaling Ventures because I’m always trying to find new frameworks and practical applications and to refresh principles that I haven’t used for a while.

The professors were amazing. It was a pleasure to have David Wessels teaching; I have his books. Gad Allon was also great. I was really pleased with the way the faculty delivered the content and how they conducted things in general, managing the intensity and mood of the class.

The concepts I found most valuable, that I’m going to keep using in my work, were decision trees, the cause and effect of metrics, tracking metrics related to actions, depicting metrics in a way that’s easy to understand, the importance of cash flow, and keeping in mind that you have to create value or you will destroy cash. Those concepts are powerful and they’re my bible. Hearing them again and refreshing them at Wharton was really amazing. I learned a lot from my classmates too, who were from very diverse business backgrounds — from a plastic surgeon to another executive who founded a large lending company in India.

I’ve taken courses at several universities and done postgraduate work, and Scaling Ventures was one of the best classes in terms of the balance of content, the depth, and the length of time. I’ve recommended it to my boss and another colleague. I’m considering taking another Wharton Executive Education course this year, probably in negotiations or corporate valuation.”

Gabriel Arbe  Director of Operations, VMware Latin America

Our company is 21 years old and was started in the garage of John Pantanella, our founder and CEO today. We have experienced consistent growth over the past 20 years and now employ 85 people with offices in St. Louis, MO and Los Angeles, CA. We regularly evaluate the structure of our business to ensure it can support our future growth. Scaling Ventures offered a curriculum that focused on providing insights and strategies that were meaningful to our team.

I especially valued the personnel component of the course — attracting the right people, conducting a disciplined interviewing process, and supporting them with the right individual goals. As a result, we implemented a new interviewing process at Chemline that ensures we are considering different aspects of the role and eliminating groupthink.

Another valuable aspect of the course included a deep dive into KPIs. The strategy focused on return on invested capital and offered significant insights. As a result we are designing new KPIs for Chemline based on that return-on-invested-capital lecture.

I found the quality of the faculty very high, with Professor Gad Allon as a true standout. We met with him individually after one of his lectures. He assisted us in working through our challenges and made himself available throughout the course.

The participants were a diverse group from many different industries and a variety of company life stages. Many great insights came from fellow classmates as we covered the material.”

Ted Thurmond President, Chemline

I own a plastic surgery practice here in the Palm Beach, Florida area, but I’m also a serial entrepreneur. I’ve developed and owned a range of businesses through the years, including commercial real estate such as shopping centers.

As a serial entrepreneur, what we normally do is jump in with both feet and then say, what have I gotten myself into? Sometimes it works out fabulously and sometimes it flops. But at this point in my life, I don't know that I want to take the same approach as when I was younger. I decided to enroll in Scaling Ventures because although I’m good at starting businesses and putting systems in place, scaling a business is not a strength of mine. When I saw an ad for this course, it really spoke to my needs.

I was really looking forward to the course; I was excited about it, did prep for it, and had high expectations. And the program was amazing. It truly exceeded my expectations.

The faculty were rock stars. I can't say anything short of that. Not 'outstanding,' not 'fabulous,' but rock stars. They were clearly the best of the best, and I don’t say things like that easily or readily.

One major concept I learned was that growing a business does not equal scaling a business. In order to scale, you must be growing profits at a faster rate than revenue. Another important concept was analyzing and measuring the return on invested capital.

I also learned that not all ideas are worth trying to scale. I have been working on two different business opportunities, and the teachings from the course helped me make smart decisions about them. For one of the opportunities, I realized it didn’t make sense to try and scale it, and for the other, I’m applying a more measured approach to scaling. This was all as a result of taking the course.

I would give Scaling Ventures the highest possible recommendation."

Brian Hass, MD Owner/Founder, Hass Plastic Surgery/Brand Properties

My company, Sherpa Prep, is a standardized test prep provider in the Washington, D.C. market. It’s a small company in relation to many of our competitors, but we’ve established a beachhead locally and are looking to expand on numerous fronts, both physical and technological. In truth, I've been thinking about the issue of scale for several years now. This specific course inspired me to take action for my business.

Scaling Ventures exceeded my elevated expectations. The curriculum is thoughtfully conceived and well curated. In each session, we discussed different aspects of scale — strategic, technological, financial, and human. I knew that I made the correct decision within the first hour, when Professor Allon defined scale and how it differs from growth, and how not all firms are built to scale nor should. Professor Allon explained it all in a way that was crystal clear: I doubt that I’ll ever forget that lesson.

Another important takeaway for me was the Return on Assets Tree, in which managers are challenged to identify their firm’s value drivers: the operational performance measures that affect the firm’s financials. It’s a holistic, thought-provoking exercise, so much so that I started working on it during the course and am continuing to tinker with my findings now, months after the course has ended.

Professor Allon is incredibly transparent, earnest, and friendly. He expressed genuine interest in helping us tackle our individual challenges. A month after the course ended, he graciously scheduled a video conference so that we could discuss what was happening in our companies, what was working for us, and what was not.

I was also impressed by the achievements and acumen of the other participants. Our group was diverse and represented a variety of regions and industries and — perhaps more importantly — entities across the scaling spectrum. Many of us have stayed in touch post-course, holding ourselves accountable to our scaling initiatives and providing each other with constructive sounding boards.

I recommend this program without hesitation and with enthusiasm. As a small business owner, I spend much of my time 'fighting fires,' getting lost in the trivialities of day-to-day operations, and not thinking strategically. Forcing myself to make the time to attend a week-long program was a welcome and necessary respite. Investing in myself and in my company by stepping away and thinking about big-picture questions is something I wish I had done earlier.”

Nafeez Amin President and Co-owner, Sherpa Prep

We’re an upstart company that makes 3D computer models of buildings for use in engineering, prefabrication, and design. We started about three years ago with nine employees, on very limited financing, but we scaled. Today we’re a tech services company with nearly 100 employees. We’ve had incredible growth.

I wanted to attend Scaling Ventures because as a CEO it's my job to set strategy for my relatively new business. It’s lonely at the top. I can’t always go to my people and say, ‘Hey what do you guys think?’ So it’s good to get outside input to make sure you’re on the right course. I searched several prestigious business schools for courses, but the Wharton course description really nailed what I was looking for. I felt like it was designed exactly for a guy like me, whose company is still sort of early-stage and who wants to get validation on where it's going.

Taking the program was tremendously beneficial for me. Based upon input from Professor Gad Allon and some of my fellow participants, I was inspired to make changes to my three- and five-year strategic plan. So the program altered the direction of how I plan to grow my business. That’s a pretty big impact! In addition, I took back a lot of the course content and taught the highlights to key managers in my company.

I really benefited from being with the other participants, who were from all over the U.S. and overseas. It was great to have a peer group that is facing some of the same issues. They came from a wide variety of backgrounds: software, chemicals, health care, retail, entertainment. It was enlightening to see that — like me — some of them might be incredibly strong in one area and weak in another. I came away feeling like I really do 'have game!' The instructors were all fantastic. Gad Allon is a rock star in my book. David Wessels really stood out too. The professors made the course real-world with great content and case-study material.

Scaling Ventures was worth every penny spent on the trip and the time away from work. I would recommend it absolutely and unequivocally."

Ken Smerz CEO, Eco3d

At Navian, we have recently spun out our technology into a standalone fintech platform called Luma Financial Technologies. We have a very unique and compelling opportunity to scale our fintech platform nationally, and we want to make sure we’re as equipped as possible to do it effectively.

The Scaling Ventures program was fantastic. Almost the entire curriculum was very applicable to what I am dealing with and implementing at my company right now. Some high points for me were the return-on-invested-capital value drivers and decision trees, and the exercise around a firm’s 'alpha' assets. We've put many of the pieces into practice with our management team.

Also really valuable to me was the part about scaling up staffing in the organization, since we’re more than doubling our staff this year. In the program we examined the process of what types of hires you should be looking for, and being careful that you don't have too many “joats” (jack-of-all-trades). The program helped me become more focused on recruiting A-listers with strong connections in the industry.

Professor Gad Allon was excellent, as were all the faculty members. They added a lot of value from their individual perspectives, and they delivered the information really well. A big benefit of the course was interacting with the other participants, as well as staying connected over time and sharing experiences as we implement the principles we’ve learned. I think the network that you build with the other participants is critical, and the Wharton program did a good job of encouraging that interaction.

I’ve taken a Wharton Executive Education course before but it was nearly 20 years ago. I wish I had come back sooner! This program was of immense — and immediate — value to me. I would recommend it very highly. I’m thinking about sending some of my senior managers through the program."

Timothy Bonacci President and CEO, Navian Capital