Roland Siebelink has 24 years of tech experience in product management, product marketing, customer success, and strategy. Originally from the Netherlands, Roland came to Silicon Valley in 2016. Today, Roland and Bill share some thoughts and lessons about keeping the balance on both innovation and scale.

Roland has seen three small startup companies grow into large-scale organizations from both sides of the world (Europe and the U.S.). Roland believes the effects of good leadership, or bad leadership, usually take between 7-10 years to show up in traditional companies. However, in tech, the growth is so accelerated that it can become quite obvious when there’s good or bad management leading the team.

The founder’s personality, habits, and values automatically show up in the people he/she hires. It’s difficult to have structure when developing a fast-growing company. However, in startups, there are often no plans written down, or goals set, and this can add further chaos to a company’s growth. This often means that in the very beginning, the team has to continuously try to figure out what the founder wants today, and not develop anything meaningful for tomorrow.

There’s nothing wrong with hiring on a good operational partner to help build structure in the company. Roland knows there are many different ways to approach how to run a startup, and he’s not advocating one, and only one way, but it’s important to make clear management decisions early on, to really help set the tone of the company.

Interview Links:

Roland on LinkedIn

More Resources:Bill on YouTube: Short videos to keep you growing.Scaling Up for Business Growth Workshops: Take the first step to mastering the Rockefeller Habits by attending one of our workshops. Scaling Up Business Website

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Scaling Up is the best-selling book, by Verne Harnish and the team at Gazelles, on how the fastest growing companies succeed where so many others fail. My name is Bill Gallagher with Humanisteq Coaching and I’m one of the Gazelles business coaches. We help leadership teams to get the 4 Decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash right so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth success. Our 4 Decisions are all part of the Rockefeller Habits 2.0 (from the original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits).