If you want to go far, go together
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Hi Reader, My kids are pretty used to my entrepreneurial ways. I can’t tell you how many times they’ve seen me take a work call in the car or jump into a Zoom Room from our living room. It’s the norm for them. As they get older, they get more curious about the logistics of running our business. Like the other week, I was firing off an email when my oldest son looked over and asked, “So, how many people work for you?” I had just gotten off a call with our project manager. Over the years, he’s started recognizing the names of the people I talk to regularly, including hers. Apparently I had never explained our team structure to him, though. “Technically, none,” I told him. “We don’t have employees, but we have a team of contractors who support us each month.” His question made me pause. Explaining our team to him reminded me that Rachel and I don’t often pull back the curtain on the people who help Drio run. But they’ve been a huge part of our growth. These days, we have 9 talented women who regularly help us with both internal Drio work and client projects. If you’ve been a client, you might have received an email from one of them or joined a call with another. We never set out to build a team. It was just the two of us when Rachel and I took the leap into entrepreneurship 15 years ago. For a long while, we convinced ourselves we were the only ones who could do things the Drio way. As we slowly brought on new team members, we realized that we could (and should), in fact, let go of some things. We also started to notice that other incredibly successful business owners had help behind the scenes. In a way, that gave us even more permission to accept that we didn’t have to do everything on our own. While Rachel and I are still the only ride-or-die full-timers at Drio, we wouldn’t be where we are without our internal ecosystem. As of this year, we work with:
These people have worked with us long enough now that they’re well-versed in our values and processes, but they also bring fresh perspectives and new insights since they work with a variety of businesses. They learn from us, we learn from them. By leaning on them where we need it, we can support our clients and ourselves even better. Like the proverb says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” It’s not always easy to bring in help, especially when you’re a business owner who's prone to independence…but I’ll take steady, supported growth over a lonely sprint any day. What’s your team structure like? Have you been thinking about bringing on more support this year? I’m happy to swap insights on finding contractors who suit your business. Or keep an eye out for my next office hours, and we can dive into it then! If you have kids, I’d also be super curious to know what kind of questions they ask you about running a business.
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Hi! I'm Rachel, the Left Brain of Drio.
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