This is a CTP of initiative: Impact Hub Amsterdam (Netherlands)
This critical turning point revolves around a process of professionalization, in which there was a shift from having mostly volunteers towards a team of hired staff. After having run the operations for two years with volunteers, in 2010 the co-founders decided that the operations of the Hub Amsterdam could not further develop itself and function properly on basis of volunteers only. As the co-founder 2 indicates: “The volunteers are very nice and motivated, they have a lot of energy, however as we were becoming a more professional business, we had to have certain things in place that can't rely on volunteers, so we had to hire a professional staff.” This had a considerable effect on the kind of businesses and people that the community attracted and also on how the space at the Westerstraat was run. According to co-founder 1, this was a gradual shift: “We started with a lot of volunteers but as we gradually made more revenue we gradually could start paying people more. That gradually developed over 2 years. The decision to hire a manager was another step in the process”.
Before this turning point, the three co-founders were the ones who pulled off the project and started to outfit the space, create events, on-boarded members, supported them and were starting to bring life to the Hub Amsterdam. At some point the co-founders realised that they could not provide the consistency and maintenance of the day-to-day practices needed, because they were the ones who were the creators and shapers of the concept: “After two years of building we were asking ourselves “Who’s going to continue to take care of the basic operations and all those activities that we have in our business (…): admin, communications, posting and all those other activities?”. The answer was not us, therefore, we decided to hire a manager” (co-founder 2). This also had an effect on the dynamics in the team, since it was their first paid staff member, who originally received more salary than the three co-founders. The three co-founders hired this operations manager in the summer of 2010. As co-founder 2 indicates “We needed someone to rely on who could take that responsibility for running the operations: member services, offering events, day to day activities and the administration”. After the operations manager was hired, this resulted in a much more professional, efficient and productive hub. Before, things had been more chaotic and things were done in a more ad hoc way. Co-founder 2 recalls: “It was a bit disorganized and you kind of did what needed to be done when it happened”.
The influx of a new character also changed the composition of the community. Even though there had always been a group of core members, it had mostly attracted people who were close to the co-founders and who resonated with their goals and ambitions. After a new managing staff was hired, there was a difference in the people who were attracted to the hub. “As a leader and founder you attract pioneers and founders, but when you are a bit more settled and you have more of a manager type and a hosting team doing the events, we suddenly had a new generation of members showing up” (co-founder 2).
Today (October 2016), Impact Hub Amsterdam has a total of 280* registered paying members. Besides that, there is a broader membership of about 620 people including the advisory board and 5000+ other people that are connected to Impact Hub Amsterdam by receiving the newsletter.
*In June 2017 a total number of 350 members
Firstly, the three co-founders were clearly most involved in making the decision to hire a professional staff. They were the ones who decided Hub Amsterdam was in need for more stable operations. Because of their roles as co-founders, and the realisation that they were not in the position to take the full-time role, they sought someone with a stronger operational background. The new manager was hired in the summer of 2010. According to co-founder 2, she was somebody who they could rely on and who would take the responsibility for running the operations.
In the process of professionalization, roles and expectations changed: “There is much more freedom as you are starting as an entrepreneur, while later on there are so many things that demand your time and attention, and the stakes are higher” (co-founder 1). The shareholder also emphasises that starting up the business is a completely different ballgame than running one: “It requires different skills and energy. That means that you need to put your nose to the grindstone and run the organization, which is not everybody’s cup of tea. Some people are more on setting up the concept and other people are better at managing something”.
Also the composition of the community and membership changed during this process of professionalization. The first community members, the ones who engaged themselves with Hub Amsterdam from the beginning, had a closer relationship with the co-founders. This group consisted of people who could identify themselves with the co-founders’ beliefs, identities and goals. After the professional staff came in, the membership base broadened and opened up: “In the beginning people could just come in and have a coffee and could join some sessions. But because of our success we could not have coffee and one on one conversations with everybody anymore, so we needed to structure some of those processes, and that made a big difference. So basically the first community members were much more individually related to one of the founders and after that they were more related to the members and the team as a whole” (co-founder 2).
There were several related events before, during and after the hiring of staff that enabled or triggered this process of professionalization. First, there is the actual move to the Westerstraat in November 2008 (see CTP locating at Westerstraat). From this point onwards, the Impact Hub shifted from a social network of like-minded entrepreneurs with a vision, towards and an actual initiative with a physical place. Because of this, they could put their ideas in practice and it consequently became necessary to have a staff who could run the day-to-day operations.
Second, before the actual hiring of a new staff, there were decisions taken that it was a required next step for the organisation. “We had to stop running that way (…) that’s probably an important event, realizing that we can no longer run like that” (co-founder 2). Third, there is the actual hiring of the new staff. In the early summer of 2010 a vacancy was published and job interviews were held. Fourth, there was the moment that the new manager started her job in September 2010, putting her knowledge and experience into practice. Fifth, there were the many events following the influx of a hired manager, including the organisation of more recurrent and structured events rather than only ad-hoc offerings, that was made possible by this professionalization.
The process of professionalization did not end after this particular turning point in the summer of 2010. In fact, there seems to have been several other rounds of professionalization in the years after, often coinciding with other critical turning points such as the REBRANDING and the first RELOCATION (end 2013). After the relocation in 2013, for instance, there was an organizational shift that coincided with one of the co-founders leaving the Impact Hub Amsterdam (but still staying connected to it). After the relocation in 2013, the co-founders realised that there was a need for another round of professionalization in terms of having one person taking full charge of the business. As co-founder 1 describes: “There was a little bit the detachment of emotions. It’s like we went from ‘this is our baby’, to ‘we are trying to nurture the baby in order for it to grow up’. There is the community that is many more stakeholders, and a diversified team, it is less about that core”.
In a way, the turning point of hiring a professional manager, was a reaction to prior contestations and struggles, in particular those that the co-founders experienced within the day-to-day operations. Co-founder 2 does not recall any big fights, but does remember that the three co-founders “sometimes felt like we were an old married couple".
The struggle revolved around two main things. First, the struggle as co-founders to not be able to cope anymore with reacting in an ad hoc way to any request or demand that needed to be done. As co-founders, they had taken care of operational matters such as administration. But originally, that was all focused on building the Hub, making it possible. Once it was built, once the space was up and running, somebody needed “to repeat [operational tasks] day in and day out”. Hence, there was a struggle to go from an ad hoc way of 'running' the business (which was characteristic for the mode of 'building' rather than just 'running') to a more streamlined and organized way of doing so. In a way, hiring a manager was a way to overcome these struggles, as part of longer process of professionalization.
There were also some tensions in the team of co-founders regarding differing opinions on how much planning is necessary in order to control and develop the Hub. The shareholder shares his impression of this dynamic: “some members of the team had a preference for a more control planning and others had more of a preference for a more dynamic approach. They reflected the personalities in the team”. These tensions were also related to different styles. “One more masculine style of driving to a financial model or financial spread sheets and trying to get results and measure results, and judging the performance of the organization on the basis of your plan. And a more feminine approach that was more organic about emergence, less concerned with specific results and more with what was alive in the moment in the organization”. These tensions, however, were overcome because “they were all pretty mature as a team and were able to have the conversations and used the Art of Hosting and techniques to be able to maintain a good positive open culture, despite individual frustrations. By doing their own collective work and making sure that they had honest conversations with each other as well as reflecting on their own part in things, that’s the way they navigated through. In the end some of those tensions were resolved by people changing roles”.
Co-founder 2 indicates that she had no idea that the Impact Hub would develop itself in such a way, and with such pace. “We could not anticipate what we were building. We knew what our vision and general idea was, and what we wanted to do in terms of helping social entrepreneurship build their dreams, but not how it would manifest". Two of the three co-founders did not have any professional experience with running a business and had just come out of college.
Once the Hub had settled, however, the actual need for professionalization became more and more apparent. As described under related events, there were several realisations and struggles that led up to the decision to hire a professional manager. During this process, co-founder 2 realised that s/he was not a manager but an entrepreneur who wants to be focused on developing new ideas and put them into practice, instead of running the day-to-day operations and function as manager.
There are several lessons learned looking back at this this process of professionalization. Co-founder 2 argues that hiring a manager sooner would have spared a lot of energy: “Probably if I knew before I would have hired a manager a lot sooner. I think I would have started with a manager at least a year or a 1,5 year earlier. Because then we wouldn’t have gone through that chaotic ad hoc running of the business. That’s quite difficult and takes a lot from you especially when it's not your core thing and we could have been more strategic as a founder”.
During the start-up of the Hub and the process of professionalising the daily operations, there are different talents and competences needed in the different stages of building an enterprise. As described by co-founder 2: “Knowing who fits where and what role is needed, is really valuable. You have people who are more opportunity oriented, innovative and strategic, and some people thrive more on stability and continuity. Having the right people doing the right thing is crucial for running a good business or good project”. Here there was also personal learning experience in terms of developing insights on one’s own preferable work. Without prior practical working experience, co-founder 2 was not yet familiar with all the different facets and operations that are necessary to develop a professional enterprise. Therefore, she did not have fully developed insight in what his/her preference was in terms of tasks and roles. After these experiences, she found out that she is more an entrepreneur than a manager.
A more general lesson stressed by co-founder 1, looking back at the first few years of Hub Amsterdam, is that “in some sense you need to trust your gut and intuition”. As practices get more and more complex, one has to respond to ever increasing demands by using intuition. Especially because there still “was a high degree of idealism in our way of working”. This insight is confirmed by the shareholder. S/he stresses that developing a new innovative enterprise can bring a lot of contestations and struggles along, and that it is essential to have an energetic and motivated staff which is engaging beyond the formal roles that they are playing. In a sense they have to be fully in line with the ideas and ideology of the Hub.
It seems that a few years later, Impact Hub Amsterdam has integrated a learning strategy as a core value in its professional culture. As described by a member of the organisation team in 2014: “Learning for us really occurs on a daily base. I think the main learnings are when something doesn’t go according to plan, or when you set goals and it doesn’t work out, and it’s really a culture of sharing that and learning from each other. So it’s not necessarily that all of the start-ups or everyone within the team you have to make all the mistakes that someone made before you. It’s about actually setting a culture that you can also share the failures so that you can actually understand, ‘hey that’s an interesting learning path’. And there is a lot of reflection moments built in, in our team meetings” (team member Impact Hub Amsterdam, interviewee 4 as quoted in Wittmayer et al. 2015.
Stay informed. Subscribe for project updates by e-mail.
