Building to Scale is a Team Sport
by Micaela Kamp
There’s a quiet expectation in entrepreneurship that great founders have all the answers. That if you’ve built a company, you should know how to scale it. The reality? Even the best founders don’t have it all figured out: they just know where to find the answers or what questions to ask.
Growth brings complexity, and very few can navigate it all alone. After working closely with 60+ early-stage companies, I’ve seen this play out again and again: founders who build companies poised to scale don’t even try to do it all themselves. They build teams. They lean on a strong network of peers, advisors, and investors. They know preparing for scale isn’t just about hard work; it’s about having the right people in your huddle every day.
Why Building Alone Fails
In the early stages, going solo can feel faster. You make all the decisions, execute quickly, and wear every hat. But what gets you through the early phase of building can become your biggest constraint when it’s time to grow.
Trying to build in isolation isn’t just exhausting; it’s limiting. When you’re the only one making decisions, solving problems, and carrying the weight of your company’s growth, you risk burnout and blind spots.
The hard truth is: there’s no extra credit for figuring everything out the hard way. Experience compounds, but it compounds faster when you learn from others. Early stage teams that tap into the experiences of others gain an edge that lone wolf operators simply don’t.
Founders Network: Your First Layer of Leverage
This is where your founder network comes in. Whether it’s peers, mentors, investors, or operator friends, you need people who can help you see around corners and avoid pitfalls
A strong founder network is more than just a sounding board. It’s a force multiplier. It gives you unfiltered insight into what's actually working (and what’s not), especially when it comes to things like hiring, leadership structure, team retention, and building culture under pressure.
Beyond advice, though, founder networks provide something just as crucial: perspective. Building a company to scale can be isolating, especially when things aren’t working the way you’d hoped. Having people around you who get it and have struggled through the same uncertainties keeps you grounded.
This may seem like something obvious to have, many founders treat this task as something they’ll get to later “once things slow down.”
But even with the best network, no external relationship replaces the leverage that comes from having the right people inside the company. The hiring isn’t just a tactical need; it’s how you lay the foundation for a company that can grow. (And a strong team is one of our top criteria for selecting new investments.)
Hiring Is the Work
Hiring is the real work and one of the clearest signs that a founder is ready to scale.
Why? Because it’s a reflection of the clarity a team has about their business and its trajectory:
Can you name the gaps holding the business back?
Do you know what great looks like in the role you’re hiring for?
Can you attract people who are better than you at the thing you’re handing off?
Do you understand what is needed to unlock the next stage of growth for you?
Hiring well isn’t transactional, it’s transformational. And it requires you to step out of your day-to-day and focus on what is needed to build for what’s coming next.
Whether it’s a mission-aligned co-founder, a strategic early hire, or a trusted operator who grows into a key leadership role, the people you bring in early are the ones who shape what your company becomes. Hiring well is how you stop building alone and start building momentum.
How to Build the Right Support System
A strong support system doesn’t fall into place by accident. It’s built with intention.
It starts with identifying the right mix of mentors, advisors, and fellow founders who complement your strengths and fill in your gaps. Mentors and advisors offer seasoned guidance, while peers provide real-time feedback and emotional support.
The key is to seek people who will challenge you, push your thinking, and offer constructive criticism, but also people who share your vision and values. Building a network isn’t about quantity; it’s about quality. A handful of trusted connections is far more valuable than dozens of superficial ones.
And when it comes to building your team: start with being honest about your limits. What parts of the company are slowing you down? What roles would unlock growth if someone else owned them fully?
Hiring is only the first step. Onboarding, alignment, and trust take work. Don’t just delegate tasks, transfer ownership. Make sure your early hires aren’t just filling gaps but building alongside you.
The Takeaway
Founders who try to do it alone, whether by avoiding outside input or hesitating to hire, limit how far their company can go. Scaling a company is a team sport. You’ll know you are ready to scale when creating systems, hiring the right people, and cultivating strong networks of support isn’t just part of the playbook; it is the playbook.
If you’re feeling the pressure to have all the answers, take a step back. The smartest move isn’t knowing everything. It’s knowing who to ask for help and who can help carry the weight.
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How We Invest
We built RevUp to invest into B2B and B2C companies ascending the $1M-$10M growth curve. We know from experience—and from the stellar performance of our portfolio—that this curve can be conquered. But, having the right resources and support along the way is critical to success.
RevUp combines non-dilutive investment with hands-on support to help companies build stronger, more scalable infrastructure for growth. And, we do it using a non-dilutive model. Our goal? Give companies the best shot at success while preserving founder equity, optionality, and autonomy.
For more info on how we invest check out the video below or go here.
About the Author
RevUp Capital Director of Platform Micaela Kamp is an accomplished growth marketer and content architect with 10+ years of experience helping early stage companies share their stories. Over the years, she has used her ability to question everything and a belief in storytelling to build strong foundations for scalable growth for founders.