Scaling Up With Purpose

What really breaks when companies grow, and what keeps growth pointed in the right direction.

There's a moment every growing company hits, usually around 20, 50, or 100 people, where what used to work suddenly doesn't.

The founder who used to make every decision can't anymore. The culture that lived in one person's head needs to live in a system. The hustle that got you here won’t get you there.

Most people call this “growing pains.“ I call it a fracture point. And how you handle it determines whether the next five years look like acceleration or chaos.

This is exactly what I’ll be discussing this week at Beyond Innovation Arena (Metropolitan Expo, Athens, June 17-19), where I’m speaking as part of the “Fractures” track. And I’m especially looking forward to one conversation in particular, with my friend Konstantinos Lafkas of Microglobals.

Konstantinos has spent 25+ years inside the machine: CEO of Alfa Laval Greece, CEO of Sunlight (€160m revenue, 1,000 people), CCO of Selonda (€250m, 3,000 people), board member across tech startups and VC funds. He's also a certified Scaling Up coach trained under Verne Harnish, and co-author of the Greek edition of “Scaling Up”, winner of multiple international book awards.

So when we talk about scaling, we are talking in tangible ways about what actually breaks and what actually fixes it at each stage of growth.

But here’s the part that matters most to me, and to Purpose-Driven Academy: the Scaling Up framework (People, Strategy, Execution, Cash) is a powerful vehicle.

The question that determines whether that vehicle takes you somewhere worth going is: scaling toward what?

I’ve seen companies nail the operational side, clean org charts, tight KPIs, predictable cash flow, and still lose their best people, because nobody could answer why any of it mattered. That’s a fracture that doesn't show up on a balance sheet until it’s expensive.

So in our session, we are bringing these two things together: the rigor of a proven scaling methodology, and the question of purpose that keeps that methodology pointed in a direction worth running toward.

What's the biggest “fracture point” you’ve experienced in your own growth, personal or professional?