1. Onyx Boost Programme
Boosting your Growth from idea to success
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Introducing the Onyx Boost Programme
There is currently a boom of entrepreneurs with innovative ideas founding start-up technology
businesses globally. This new rush to create the next billion user/ customer organisation is an
exciting one, with many high profile success stories that we are familiar with. However, research1
has shown that 90% of these companies fail in the early stages; and of these 70% fail due to
management issues not due to competition or market forces.
The implications for both young businesses and those who invest in them is significant. The
business founder is usually focussed on the product rather than mundane business management.
Furthermore, an investor’s focus is almost always solely on long term returns and the strategic
direction of the business rather than the day-to-day management. This puts young businesses at a
high risk of having a valuable product or service, but nonetheless failing due to issues of business
management. For this reason, we have designed the Onyx Boost Programme.
Onyx Boost Programme
The programme has been designed to assist these young companies turn their idea into a successful
organisation. Unlike anything else in the market we look across all drivers of business: innovation
development, strategy/ business model, operations (structures and processes), execution (culture
and growth management) & talent (leadership & talent management). From this we can assist
management identify and overcome their growth challenges.
Context
1Startup Genome Report Extra on Premature Scaling: A deep dive on why
most high growth startups fail, The Genome Project, 2011.

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Introducing the Onyx Boost Programme
Until now, advice like this for companies and their investors has been rare. The Onyx Booster
Programme has been designed to be highly value adding for the investors and company, delivered
in a way that is suitable for the young company and commercially structured to this market.
Value to investors
• Investment Oversight: We will identify the key short- and medium- term challenges the
investment business faces;
• Risk Mitigation: We will work with the management of the organization to illustrate potential
risks, develop an action plan and provide regular monitoring and coaching;
• Realised Growth Potential: We will provide a summary report with our independent
assessment and an outline of the action steps agreed to by the management. This will provide
you with a better understanding to ensure you place your focus in the right place to realise the
full potential of your investment.
• Portfolio Management Tool: When the programme is applied across your portfolio of
companies the insights we provide will provide a better understanding of the evolving risks
within your portfolio so you can more effectively manage this to optimise your portfolio returns.
The value to investors & the company

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Introducing the Onyx Boost Programme
Value to organisations
• Growth Assessment: We help leaders of the business to understand a typical growth journey
and the challenges and benefits they will experience along the way. This will provide a rare
opportunity to have a holistic look at the big picture and focus on managing the business rather
than the product development.
• Identify Hurdles: Our gap analysis helps to identify the specific challenges that are already being
faced and those yet to come that could prevent the business from reaching its growth potential.
• Strategic Focus: With the additional insight that we will feed back as a result of our interviews,
surveys and analysis the management will have a deeper understanding of the business as a
whole and can refine their plan to realise their strategic vision.
• Clarify Priorities: A workshop with all key stakeholders helps them prioritise the coming
challenges as a team, agree to the next steps and strategic KPIs and progress with a clarity of
purpose and role.
• Ongoing Advice: A monthly review of the businesses progress against the mutually identified
KPIs will provide the framework for us to provide any additional support or advice that
management may feel that they could benefit from to test their thinking.
The value to investors & the company

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The Growth Model
Evolution and Revolution of growth
Source: Harvard Business Review, July-August 1972
Phase 1:
Creativity
Phase 2:
Direction
Phase 3:
Delegation
Phase 4:
Coordination
Phase 5:
Collaboration
Age of OrganisationYoung Mature
Large
Small
SizeofOrganisation
Crisisof
Leadership
Crisisof
Autonomy
Crisisof
Control
Crisisof
RedTape
To better understand the cycle of business growth, and in turn the challenges associated with the
early stages, we can reference the work of Larry Greiner whose model of organisational growth is
demonstrated below. The vast majority of start-ups from any sector can be categorised within
phases 1 to 3.

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Early Growth Challenges
Common phase 1-3 challenges
Typical company environment Management Focus Common Challenges
Phase 1 A close-nit team of entrepreneurial individual
working together to develop and commercialise
the idea. The working structures are informal,
with long hours and the promise of ownership
reward in the future.
• To turn the idea into a proven business
model
• Responding rapidly to market feedback
• Capital raising to grow the business
• Commercialising the idea. May require the
business to pivot before a proven business
model is found
• Developing an initial strategy once they have
proven the viability of their business model.
Phase 2 The company has expanded into a small
organisation, with a management team leading
the organisation. Working practices are more
formal, and the company would seek to add a
number of employees to grow the business
• Growing the business whilst trying to reign in
costs
• Creating efficient & scalable operations for
the organisation to deliver value
• Defining standards and procedures
• Implementing an effective sales process
• Clearly defining the accountabilities and roles
of the executives, and functions of the
business
• Implementing talent management and
performance management process
• Managing the evolving culture of the new
organisation
Phase 3 With a secure footing in the original
marketplace, the company is now expanding
into new markets; segments or geographies.
They are looking to customise their products to
suit these markets and for the first time, turning
there attention to a wider innovation pipeline.
• Business expansions across all existing and
new markets
• The creations of profit and cost centres
• Defining the role of the centre
• Establishing efficient & scalable global
operations
• Articulating and enforcing the behaviours
and values of the global organisation
• Formulating a cohesive international/
segment growth strategy, including
prioritisation of these markets
• Defining an effective model to delegate
authority
• Creating market feedback loops to maintain
company agility
• Effectively managing innovation and talent

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HOW IT WORKS (1/2)
Steps of the Onyx Boost Programme
The extent to which a business is prepared to handle the challenges that it is likely to face is a strong
indicator of success. Our approach is to assess the current state of a business individually, and
evaluate where specific efforts should be focused to better prepare for the coming challenges.
Introductory Workshop
An online presentation that walks the business’ leaders through the stages of growth
within the context of the tech sector.
Business Assessment
Interviews with key stakeholders and review of specific documents, using our
comprehensive model of business performance as the framework for data collection
and analysis.
Reporting
A detailed report highlighting the findings from the business assessment, identifying
the growth challenges and opportunities of the company, and making
recommendations for next steps.

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HOW IT WORKS (2/2)
Steps of the Onyx Boost Programme
Company workshop
A workshop with the business’ leaders to review the findings of the assessment and
discuss and debate the challenges and opportunities ahead. The result is a roadmap
for the business going forward.
Ongoing support
Monitoring of agreed KPIs and a monthly follow up with the business’ leaders to
discuss performance and provide advice and support as needed.
Where appropriate and agreed up-front with the business, a copy of the report will be submitted to
their investor as well as a call held to explain the outcomes of the business assessment. This helps
the investor to understand the opportunities and challenges for the business, as well as help in
supporting key priorities going forward.

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INTRODUCTORY WORKSHOP
What makes a successful tech organisation grow
As a first step a presentation is delivered to the business leaders from a number of organisations
that may be going through the programme at similar times.
The purpose of this session is three-fold:
1. To explore the nature of the tech sector, focusing on the challenges and opportunities
faced by start-up organisations in particular.
2. To build engagement with the business leaders around the growth issues that they likely
face within their own organisations, drawing on our understanding of the sector and what
really makes a tech business succeed.
3. To get them thinking about the issues they are facing as a business and interested in
building a plan for how to take their business forward.
The goal of this session is to get business leaders of tech organisations excited about understanding
what makes a successful tech organisation grow and how to apply this understanding to their own
businesses.

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BUSINESS ASSESSMENT (1/2)
How the organisation is performing
A two day intensive business assessment will be conducted on the organisation. With an eye to
where it is now and it’s future ambitions, the assessment looks across all four areas of the business
to identify the key challenges and opportunities within each of the areas that the organisation is
facing. The Organisational Performance Equation illustrates these four areas at a high level.
The Organisational Performance Equation (OPE)
Purpose,
Objectives and
Business Model
Strategy
Organisation,
Structure and
Processes
Operations
Culture,
Behaviours and
Incentives
Execution
Leadership,
Performance
Management
Talent
DESIGN IMPLEMENTATION
Performance
The typical challenges that are often faced by young companies in the tech sector will be
assessed across the four areas of the business.
When all four parts are aligned, the organisation works like a well-oiled machine, but when they
are considered in isolation it’s easy to change one piece at the cost of another.

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BUSINESS ASSESSMENT (2/2)
How the organisation is performing
There are two key sources of information for the Business Assessment. Together they form the
basis of the business assessment which is done in the context of the growth phases of the company.
Business Leaders Interview
The aim of these interviews is to gain an
understanding of where the organisation is at
in terms of the four areas described in the
performance equation. We will also use these
interviews to gain a better understanding of
what the business’ leaders see as their main
opportunities and risks.
Documents Review
A desk based analysis will involve a review of
specific documents from the business.
Typically they will include the business plan,
business model, budgets, management
accounts, documents pertaining to the
operating structure, documents outlining key
processes, hiring plans and incentive scheme.
BUSINESS ASSESSMENT
SALES EFFECTIVENESS BUSINESS SCALABILITY
INTERNATIONAL
GROWTH PLANNING
OTHER…
TYPICAL CHALLENGES

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REPORTING
Understanding where the business is now
Drawing on all the information collected during the interviews and documents review, we will
analyse the data based on the Organisational Performance Equation, the Growth Model as well as
tech sector specific drivers.
When the data has been analysed and key trends identified, a bespoke report will be compiled
which will include:
• Organisational Performance Equation – general trends that emerged from the assessment in
relation to the different areas of the OPE model.
• Growth Stage – what stage of growth the business is currently in and what to look out for in
terms of the next potential crisis.
• Specific drivers/challenges – how the business is doing against tech specific drivers and any
other factors that stood out in the assessment.
The report will be shared with the business’ leaders during a final workshop (explained overleaf).

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COMPANY WORKSHOP
Roadmap to growth
We will bring together the management team for a final workshop to discuss and debate their
challenges and agree on their roadmap to further enhance the growth of the business.
The workshop is divided into three parts.
1. Presentation of findings
We present what we have found to the business’ leaders and explain our rationale behind it.
2. Understanding of the challenges
We will facilitate a discussion with the business’ leaders around the challenges, enabling them
to voice their various opinions and build a joint understanding of the challenges.
3. Prioritising
The business’ leaders will rank the challenges and agree next steps they need to take.
Following the workshop we will update the report with any relevant changes as a result of the
workshop, including recommendations and agreed next steps.

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ONGOING SUPPORT
KPIs Monitoring and Ongoing Advice
KPIs Monitoring
A full set of standard KPIs will be evaluated and measured as part of the assessment process.
Additionally, relying on the use of the U-Start platform, we will actively collect and monitor those
same KPIs following on from our engagement in order to measure the progress of the business.
As part of the workshop and review with the business’ leaders following our assessment there will
be a set of agreed actions designed to better position the business for the challenges ahead. We
will also agree on select, specific KPIs which will represent key areas of focus for management and
the business in the short to medium term.
The business will commit to submitting its KPIs on a monthly basis which will allow us to monitor
progress and success of the business as a whole as well as the specific focus areas.
Ongoing Advice
When the KPI data is submitted each month we will do a brief analysis of the progress and catch up,
on a call, with a key management representative. We will explore their progress and provide an
outlet for asking questions, seeking advice and exploring new and alternative ideas. Our aim is to
keep the team focused on their committed course of action and help them to navigate any
unforeseen challenges or consequences that may arise.

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INVESTOR REPORT
A Portfolio Management Tool
Where an investor has sourced the Onyx Boost Programme for one or more companies in their
portfolio, a copy of the report produced for each company will be submitted following the
conclusion of the engagement. In addition, a call will be held with the investor to provide an
overview of our business assessment findings and recommendations, as well as advice on how they
can best support the company going forward.
The Overview Document
For each organisation in the investment portfolio that we worked with we will provide the same
summary report that we provided to management. In addition, where we are assessing more than
one company in a portfolio, we will also provide the investor with an overview document of the
portfolio. This overview document will be a summary of the portion of their portfolio which we
have assessed, highlighting the risks and potential of each one.
The aim of the report will be to provide the investor with a bigger picture of their investments and
where they may want to focus their efforts. An overview of which businesses are facing which
challenges in relation to the growth journey will allow the investor to better utilise their time and
resources to maximise the return on their portfolio.

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Onyx Consulting
Onyx is an innovative management consultancy that works with clients to co-create their future
success. We treat their business as our own, identifying and improving those aspects of the
organisation that will have the greatest impact on driving performance. Our comprehensive
approach examines the alignment of everything from an organisation’s strategy and operations to
how it executes and manages its talent. That’s why business leaders hire Onyx Consulting…to
unlock the potential of their organisations.
Based in London and a representative office in Italy, we serve clients predominantly in Europe, but
also further afield. We are keen to work with you, so please contact us:
Chris Haley
+44 (0)7734 856 028
a.haristos@onyxconsulting.co.uk
Onyx Head Office
London, United Kingdom
www.onyxconsulting.co.uk
A little about us
Alex Haristos
+39 349 6730 578
a.haristos@onyxconsulting.co.uk
Onyx Europe
Vecchiano (PI), Italy