I used to be my business and my business used to be me.

I kept my head down, and I worked on anything and everything that I thought would drive the business forward - content, marketing, user experience, a better website.

I tried growing the business by brute force, and I tried doing it alone. If I was not working on TCLA, TCLA was not moving forward. If I took time off, TCLA was not moving forward.

The first change came two years ago when TCLA transitioned from a consultancy business to a productised service. Rather than providing live training, where I was the sole author, I moved the training onto the platform Teachable. Customers paid a monthly subscription to receive access to the courses, resources and training on our platform.

This was the first time I discovered the power of leverage. With the use of an online platform, no longer did every new customer require more input from me. I could effectively scale the business because I was not limited by the time I had available. The recurring model provided predictable income and by engaging in other forms of leverage - such as writing copy and building a social media following - I could make a sale from wherever a customer was based.

The second change came last year, when I hired contractors and agencies to work for TCLA on a longer-term basis. This was scary; I still believed I had to do everything myself, and I always feared the business could be taken away at any moment.

But this ended up being my best decision for two reasons:

First, I was able to delegate tasks to experts. Rather than spending a day building a sub-standard page to advertise a new service, I could spend an hour writing the content and leave the rest to people who were more experienced than me.

Second, I unlocked time and I could deploy that time to achieve a higher output. In the past, when I provided a 1-1 service, one hour of my time provided one hour of output for an individual customer, at the rate the customer paid for our service. By hiring consultants to deliver services, I was no longer spending 8 hours a day working in the business. I was now free to work on the business. I remember how surreal this felt at the time. For once, I actually had time, and my time could be spent on growing TCLA.

This year, I learned about the power of building systems, and I am now in the midst of a third change. The concept of building systems was new to me; because I was so focused on short-term survival and a misunderstanding of productivity, I thought the best use of my time was to just work on anything that would grow TCLA in the next month. I didn’t realise the value of building a system because building a system didn’t feel like it was contributing to TCLA’s growth.

But this was short-term thinking. Building systems means building a business that functions without me. This has been a problem; because I was so used to being the sole person to run TCLA, everything about the running of TCLA was locked up in my head. So, when I assumed I was giving the team clear instructions, I was setting tasks without the benefit of everything else I was thinking. Everyone had imperfect information.

The first step I am taking to building systems is to document everything. Every task should be documented clearly so that anyone in the business can take on that particular task. I must also document my vision for the company and the short to long-term goals. The second step is to organise this information in a single location.

This is a weakness of mine and I still have a long way to go. I prioritise fast execution rather than documentation, but documentation is far more efficient and valuable in the long term because it unlocks future time. It also allows the team to carry out their roles to a higher standard without friction.

I can also already see the fourth change taking place as I increasingly think about investing in myself as a means to increase leverage.

I like being a solo founder, but I am also keenly aware that I am handicapped. I am only as good as my ability to make the right decisions, which is determined by the quality of my inputs. Without prior experience of running a successful start-up or an owner to bounce ideas with, I am prone to making mistakes.

Going forward, I realise that I cannot efficiently scale the business without learning from others, so I am placing more weight on investments that accelerate my understanding of running a successful business. So far, this includes things like quarterly reviews with my accountant and joining a start-up programme. This also includes meeting more people who run businesses and taking opportunities that allow me to see how other businesses I work with operate.

I’m taking baby steps, but I have already been amazed by the value I have received. Shoutout to one of our readers, Harish, for recently catching up to chat about his business Diaspo and for sharing this terrific article (with many gems on systems and documentation!).