Shhh..! Don’t tell my clients. There are lots of consultants out there, offering all kinds of services, using a variety of approaches. But what is a startup operations consultant exactly? What do they do? And do you even need one..?
What is a startup operations consultant?
The truth is, you need to do your research because it depends…
1) What’s your industry?
If your startup is operationally intensive like Deliveroo, delivering physical products with thousands of couriers on the ground, you probably want an operations consultant with experience building and managing teams and processes at large scale. That’s the focus.
If your startup is operationally light like Monzo, building mainly digital products, you may prefer a consultant with more technical experience to optimise back office functions.
Naturally, there are many shades in between. My experience is principally in startups with either boots on the ground, large ops teams, or both. That said, I’ve had clients in last mile delivery, on demand services, ecommerce, marketplace, EVs, micromobility, cleantech, healthtech, edtech, proptech, and more. My operational expertise translates well.
2) Is your startup pre-launch, early stage or scale-up?
Startup consultants tend to prefer a certain growth stage. Typically that’s based on their past experience, but also what they enjoy. I interviewed at Deliveroo when they were a dozen people crammed into a windowless room, but 5 years later we had offices in 13 countries. As a result, I’m comfortable working with startups at any stage.
Of course, the funding series you’re at also determines your budget. If you haven’t raised a seed round yet, unless you can persuade a consultant to work for sweat equity, you won’t be able to afford a good one! If you’re post series A, you’ll have more choice of consultants. Beyond Series C, you can probably afford to hire someone full-time. But you should still consider freelancers and fractional roles, given the future of work is moving that way.
3) What are your problems?
Is there an operational fire you need to fight immediately? Are you hiring your first ops director? Designing your operations strategy? Restructuring your ops team?
Consultants are more or less specialised, based on experience and personal preference. I would cheekily say I specialise in being a generalist, although I always focus on solving problems by developing leadership. Good leadership enables effective delegation, which in turn multiplies impact across teams and the company. I can give you a better return on investment by mentoring you to solve problems, than by doing all the work myself.
… But ultimately, ops is ops
The fundamental purpose of ops is the same, regardless of the organisation. Ops is about solving problems while managing resources efficiently, in order to deliver high quality products or services. In practice, this boils down to designing systems, policies and processes. The more experience someone has, and the more startups they’ve worked with, the better perspective they can give you on how to make your operations world class.
What should a startup ops consultant do?
There are different schools of thought. This is my opinion, based on results I’ve achieved with over a dozen startups. I’ve also worked with many other consultants, good and bad.
I can’t stand Powerpoint decks, and I’m not going to write you a research thesis telling you why you should optimise x, y or z. You honestly couldn’t pay me enough! If a consultant tells you this is necessary, and more to the point if they’re billing for those hours, I’d question: why? I’m all for deliverables where relevant, but I do my best to keep things simple.
In my experience, it really doesn’t matter whether an operations consultant is Lean, Agile, or Lean Six Sigma certified, has an MBA or letters after their name. Unless you’re curing cancer or putting satellites in space, chances are you just need someone to understand your problems and help you fix them as fast and as simply as possible. That person needs to have relevant expertise, but most of the value comes from practice not training.
Do you need a startup operations consultant?
Possibly not. When money is tight and you’re already paying a team, it pays to be skeptical. I’ve turned plenty of potential clients away. I value integrity. If I can’t add value to what you’re doing it’s a waste of my time, and your money, to sell you a service I can’t deliver.
The questions I’d ask about any major problem in your startup are:
1) Does anyone in the company have the expertise to solve the problem?
Do they have the skills, attributes and experience to understand the problem and develop a satisfactory solution? Assuming you’ve hired well, it’s often not the skills and attributes that are lacking but the experience. The earlier stage your startup’s at, the more likely this is.
2) If someone has the expertise, do they have the time to solve it?
Even if someone has what it takes to solve the problem, an independent perspective is often a shortcut. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve helped a client solve a problem they’re been wrestling with for weeks, with a solution which in hindsight was obvious to them. My theory is it’s due to me having solved similar problems before. But also not being spread as thinly or as emotionally invested. A fresh pair of eyes is a cliché but it does work, especially since groupthink is common in startups – as it is throughout the business world.
3) What’s the cost of delaying the solution?
Time is money. If you can fix the problem in house, all credit to you. Most of the time a good team will deliver for you. But sometimes, when the house is burning down, you just need to put the fire out now! Or maybe, if you left it too long, it’s already collapsing and you need to build a new house. Or maybe, if you have foresight and humility, you want a seasoned builder to take a look at your DIY house and make sure it doesn’t catch fire to begin with. In situations like that, an operations consultant worth their salt can make a real difference.