Last week at Infinio we added a few members to the sales and marketing teams.

I’m not sure I could have predicted it, but it was enough people to suddenly feel like there is critical mass on the sales and marketing floor.  There’s now a constant buzz of noise, someone is always on the phone with a customer, and our Friday afternoon sports/movies/music debates just got a lot more lively.  Another indicator?  There’s more than one destination for lunch each day.

When I was at Dell there was a time when my team grew from 3 people to 7, inorganically. Suddenly one person’s dental appointment or sick kid no longer cancelled the team meeting; my team 1x1s took nearly an entire day.

As a manager, having a team grow like that added immeasurable complexity, but it also added immeasurable value.  When it came to brainstorming, or allocating projects to people, or even sending someone to get something proofread or looked at, there were options.  Delegating became something other than zero-sum.

It’s exciting to see this happen at Infinio.  To have responsibilities that were held by one person grow large enough that they split into a few people’s domains, to have a few people performing the same function rather than just one person in each role, and to feel like when something comes up, there’s a particular person to go to for assistance – these are all exciting signs of growth.

I’ve heard early members of startups talk about the good old days when they were small and agile and knew everyone.  We’re still in that phase, I think.  But, delightfully, a little bigger.