10 Years of Scaling Tech & Science Companies in Vancouver
May 25, 2021
We sat down with Virginia Balcom, Executive Director at SFU VentureLabs to reflect on what the last 10 years of scaling tech and science companies have been like.
May 16th, 2021
Wrk on Smooth Scaling
As an automation startup headquartered in Montreal, Wrk is proud to be a sponsor of Vancouver Startup Week. And as a fellow startup, we are particularly excited to showcase how seamless automation-implementation can be for those looking to scale their business and take it to the next level. In fact, our CEO, Mohannad El-Barachi, will be speaking at VSW on this exact topic on Wednesday, May 26 at 11 am PST, so make sure to tune in if you are at VSW!
Like many startups, Wrk was born out of necessity. In trying to scale their previous businesses, our founders, Mohannad El-Barachi and David Li, constantly found themselves bumping into labour-intensive processes that just could not be automated with the existing software available to them. This frustration gave birth to Wrk, and we have spent the past 18 months growing our team, expanding our horizons, and perfecting our platform so that startups like yours can scale your operations easily and cost-effectively using automation.
As a startup ourselves, we are all too aware of many of the obstacles that can get in the way of a company looking to scale smoothly. Our platform is designed to provide simple solutions for entrepreneurs and businesses starting out without having to deal with many of the traditional challenges (high costs and complex implementation processes) of automation.
Human-Empowered Automation
You don’t need us to tell you that the first goal for almost every entrepreneur is to successfully launch your business. In fact, if you have a product that you feel is impactful, innovative, and in demand, then you could be forgiven for thinking that the hard part is over. But we both know that isn’t true. So, what comes next?
In a word, growth. But how do you grow in a way that won’t drain your team’s resources but will allow you to provide real value for your increasing roster of clients? Enter automation.
Across all industries, human intelligence and productivity are often wasted on tasks that are time-consuming and repetitive. In fact, studies show that the average global time people spend on repetitive tasks per week is 4 hours and 38 minutes, amounting to as much as 19 workdays per year. At Wrk, we believe that every business process, in part or wholly, can be broken down into repeatable micro-tasks. Our hybrid take on automation involves machines and humans working together to complete these tasks seamlessly from end-to-end. For example, our platform can automate processes that are vital for scaling, like onboarding new employees, completing timesheets, and providing updates on products and services for customers.
With automation, you can focus on building your brand, creating relationships with clients and partners, and assembling your dream team. You will also save your current team (not to mention yourself) from burning out.
Ultimately, we are as passionate about human potential as we are about technology. That is why we believe in automated solutions that empower humans with tools to do more meaningful and impactful work. Automation truly unlocks human potential so that teams like yours can save their critical thinking skills and creativity for the bigger projects, and as you know, in the startup world, there is no shortage of those!
What’s more, by automating your processes early on, you allow your business to be competitive. In 2020, a survey by Mckinsey revealed that 35% of respondents were piloting automation for at least 1 business process and 31% of respondents had fully automated at least 1 process.
Now that you have a grasp of the basics, it’s time to learn how to effectively use automation.
How Can You Use Automation?
If you’re thinking about one particular task that is time consuming for your business and asking yourself, “I wonder if this can be automated,” it probably can! Wrk specifically provides solutions for many different areas including sales, customer support, customer success, human resources, finance, marketing, and more.
Many departments like human resources and finance involve a lot of repetitive paperwork and processes. For example, in human resources, you have various onboarding processes like setting up payroll, coordinating with your IT department to get proper software set up, and booking meetings between new employees and managers. Our automated Employee Onboarding & Offboarding Wrkflow can save your team time to focus on actually training new hires and getting them up to speed.
Similarly, when it comes to sales, it is important for your team to focus on—that’s right—selling. But would it surprise you to know that Sales teams spend the bulk of their time nurturing leads and collecting contact information of potential customers? Wrk’s Lead Nurturing or Sales Data & List Management Wrkflows enable your team to dedicate more efforts to building relationships with leads.
As well, as you scale, you are obviously keeping a close eye on your finances. Cash flow management is vital for the first few years of any business, but in the midst of ensuring your budgets are on track, your Finance team are analyzing expenses with a fine-toothed comb, chasing down missed payments, and creating, sending, and processing invoices. Want to know the solution? You guessed it: automation. Accounts Payable, Receivable & Invoicing Wrkflow can allow your Finance team to focus instead on building your business. An added bonus? Automating this process can save a lot of money. With the average company spending anywhere between $12 and $40 processing a single invoice, every dollar counts.
Wrk’s hybrid approach provides one easy-to-use platform that can create endless possibilities.
Simplicity and Speed
The idea of implementing automation to your team might seem challenging, especially if you aren’t familiar with the space. In reality, getting started is simple and fast. From start to finish, you can expect to be ready to go in as little as a week, potentially even less.
That means you can get a new process up and running without skipping a beat and as you know time is a valuable asset when you’re in startup mode.
And when it comes to another obvious valuable asset, money, you’ll be glad to hear that implementing automation with us is cost-effective. In fact, the Wrk platform in particular has been proven to reduce cost per process by an average of 20%.
Regardless of the benefits, many C-level executives are reluctant to implement automation even though they may be interested in the concept. They worry that there are a lot of different steps involved in setting the process up and there seem to be many unknowns. And since time is valuable, the idea of losing some to learning a new program is an understandable concern. While using automation for the first time (like any new process) may seem challenging, it’s actually very easy.
To get started, Wrk already has a library of pre-configured bots (or Wrk Actions), ready for you to personalize for your use. It’s as simple as dragging and dropping your chosen Wrk Actions into a flow chart and bringing your Wrkflow to life!
Implementing automation when your company is small leads to early success so that you can easily manage even higher workloads later. You can focus on finding the “right” versus the “right now” candidates to fulfill important roles, benefit from lower employee turnover, and ultimately have more time in your day to complete tasks that would otherwise fall by the wayside.
Want to learn more?
At the end of the day, startups face a lot of different challenges within their first years. Those challenges will always be there, but hybrid automation can ensure that your growing pains are less cumbersome.
Want to learn more? Visit our website and make sure you attend our CEO’s presentation about building a business for scale through foundational automation on May 26 at 11 am PST at VSW!