Around February 2020 we saw our revenue going down.
On top of that, we had been in the process of closing a significant funding round.
The final checks were being made when rumblings of COVID-19 potentially coming to Europe started coming in.
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At the same time a key senior employee decided to leave the company.
That was really when I felt we had hit our low point.
Antifragility
Every day we had new curveballs coming at us.
What if we dont get the investment?
Can we keep growing?
What kind of government support will there be?
Do we even get government support?
Whats going to happen to everyone at Growth Tribe?
In hard times, I firmly believe you better confirm your team stays together.
And thats what we did.
They need to grow, especially early stage startups.
Having all our trainers centralized in Amsterdam meant they were flying abroad to different locations for trainings.
But this limited us and wasnt sustainable from an environmental perspective.
When some of our classes across Asia started being canceled, we decided to accelerate our transition.
What was supposed to happen over 12 months happened in 12 days.
Getting clients onboard
To make this work, we would have to show our audience something different.
We would have to make it really hands on, practical, and interactive.
We quickly began experimenting both online and offline.
Here I really saw the power, speed, and brainpower of everyone at Growth Tribe.
The teams reaction was impressive.
We ran online smoke tests and high hurdle tests for our bootcamp courses.
The company became an experiment laboratory.
That took a lot of work.
We started creating studios and, in two weeks, we flipped the whole company.
So when social distancing measures were announced in Europe, we had all our courses online already.
Since the pandemic started, weve trained over 500 students.
Getting investors onboard
When we came back to the investors we were prepared.
We showed them external reports, data, and graphs.
We had already gotten traction by selling online courses and producing letters of intent.
We had already made sure that operations, HR, and our marketing materials were all aligned.
We also showed them pictures of our new creative studio.
Will the spike go up again?
Will new social distancing measures be put in place?
The first thing Id suggest is to stay close to your customers.
Second, experiment as fast as possible and trust your teams.
Were constantly experimenting with new products, new delivery channels, and new markets.
So check that your team has the tools and knowledge they need to run effective experiments.
The team was 95% of the reason for our rapid pivot.
Digital transformation is not about technology, its abouttalent.
Prepare your company for what could come by preparing your team with the knowledge they need.
Story byPeter van Sabben
Peter is on a mission to inspire adults to always be learning.
Through Growth Tribe, he helps organizations acquire emerging digital skills.
(show all)Peter is on a mission to inspire adults to always be learning.
Through Growth Tribe, he helps organizations acquire emerging digital skills.
He also takes an active role in the Amsterdam Edtech community through his initiative, DutchEdtech.
