Tom Greenwood offers insight for Wize Monkey

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-growth/the-challenge/tea-made-from-coffee-leaves-jolts-beverage-world/article25200391/

Tom Greenwood, President of Evolve

We see this a lot in Europe and not so much in North America right now, but there is a plethora of interim talent out there that is reasonably priced for the performance that you get. Wize Monkey could easily hire a senior-level person who’s been around the block who will help them grow their business in a measured way. Usually these people have 20, 30, 40 years of experience and contacts.

You don’t have to hire somebody who is going to cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Get a part-time interim CFO or CEO or managing director or VP, whatever level you feel, to help guide you through the challenges you’re going to face.

Explosive expansion can be a killer to startup companies. The tendency is to get as much business in the door as fast as they can. All of a sudden, they sit there with a potential order book and no way to fill it. Targeted and measured growth is the name of the game. You have to be able to capitalize on certain regions and markets one at a time and leave the world domination mentality at the door.

One of things they could do, which is relatively low-cost, is consult with a firm that specializes in measured market penetration. For a fraction of the cost that it would take to hire a full-time business development team, they could hire a firm to get that measured growth in the areas that they want to be in, and then learn from the successes in that region before they go on to the next one.

Do a little bit of market study first and see where your products are going to get widely accepted in the shortest amount of time, and really develop that market and go after that market first.