26: N12, Scaling Startups

Read the following articles related to hiring and motivation. These articles provide important insights into human resources and talent management that are useful for your own career development (as well as our class).

• Read the “Note on the Hiring and Selection Process”. This reading provides useful guidelines for that point in time when you will be hiring people for your company. After reading it, file it for safe-keeping and future reference. You may also find it helpful as you prepare for the employment interview process as the interviewee!
• Then read the one-page “Hiring Is Hard Work Download Hiring Is Hard Work" article by Jack and Suzy Welch posted on the course web site (Files/Readings). This article provides additional useful insight into common pitfalls in the hiring process.
• Read “Growing Up but Staying Young Download Growing Up but Staying Young” from BusinessWeek, Dec 11, 2006: a one-page commentary by Jack and Suzy Welch posted in the Readings folder in Canvas Files.
• Read “Why Incentive Plans Cannot Work” (HBR #93506). This reading offers valuable insights about intrinsic and extrinsic incentives.
• Read "The 3 Things Employees Really Want: Career, Community, Cause" by members of the Facebook HR organization and Wharton's own, Adam Grant. That article shares interesting insights from research at Facebook that applies to the workforce in general.
• Finally, read the 4-page “Life/Work” article from the November 2000 issue of Fast Company found in the Readings folder in Canvas Files. As you read this brief but valuable article, pay particular attention to the “Q12” questions and consider why they are important to accompany, its employees and its managers.

Read “Scaling a Startup: People and Organizational Issues”. Think about how you would answer the following study questions as you read this article:

• What should be achieved before scaling a startup?
• What are the five most important people and organizational challenges when scaling a startup? What are the issues and steps encountered with each?
• Why is it important to maintain an entrepreneurial culture as your startup scales? How will you accomplish this?

Read the “N12 Technologies: Building an Organization and Building a Business”. As you study this case, consider the following:

• Describe N12’s scaling up process as the company grew from 4 to 7 employees, then from 7 to 16 employees, and then from 16 to 27 employees. How and why were horizontal and vertical organizational expansions incorporated into this scaling up process? How well has the company handled each stage of this scale up? What, if anything, are they doing to stay young as they grow up?
• How would you describe the roles, responsibilities, and relationships of:
  • Berkson and Flavin
  • Williams and Degtiarov
  • Jarosz and Gouldstone

How have their jobs changed over time?

• What is your evaluation of N12’s go-to-market strategy encompassing four key markets? Do you believe this a sound strategy? Why or why not?
• Is crossing the chasm relevant to N12’s marketing strategy?
• Evaluate N12’s pushand pull marketing strategies as they apply to the different target markets.What is the likely reaction of the “prepreggers” to these strategies?
• Why did N12’s plan to engage end-user partners in joint development agreements fail? What is your opinion of their alternative “build it and they will come” model?
• Is aggressive development of Gen II, III and IV reactors in the best interests of the company? Why or why not?
• What remains to be done for N12 to become, in Berkson’s words, a “buttoned-up organization?”
• Looking at the company’s future prospects, would you invest in N12? Why or why not?
• Consider the challenges described in "Scaling a Startup." Which ones did N12 handle effectively as the company scaled? Explain.

Be prepared to discuss these and other important elements of the case in class.

DUE:

Following the guidelines in the Case Method Overview (found in Canvas Files), write a concise 2-page essay addressing the question below:

In Scaling a Startup, the authors discuss five challenges to scaling a startup. Describe the three that YOU believe are most important for N12 and why you believe they are the most important for N12 to address.

Submit your essay on Canvas before class on Tuesday. All work must be your own, subject to the University’s Code of Academic Integrity.