The Art of Scaling for Entrepreneurs, plus Santeni's Insights.

The entrepreneurial landscape in the UK is on the rise. According to Natwest, 30% of UK adults (a little under one in three) now either run their own business or plan to start a business within the next three years. Starting is the first step, but scaling is a whole new challenge in itself. In this blog, we explore the key strategies for scaling a business. Plus, in our Entrepreneur Spotlight, we feature Santeni, founder of Dinner at San’s, who is successfully scaling her business and taking the challenges that come with being a new entrepreneur in her stride.

What does it mean to scale a business?

To scale a business means to grow it in a way that allows it to handle expansion or increased demand without sacrificing its performance, efficiency, or quality. Unlike simply growing a business, (which might look like hiring more staff as you get more customers for example), scaling involves optimising and leveraging your existing assets or infrastructure to handle growth more effectively. 

What does scaling a business involve for entrepreneurs?

Scaling is all about sustainability and efficiency. It generally involves improving systems, processes, and resources so your business can accommodate more customers, higher revenue, or larger operations.

Key elements of scaling a business include:

• Optimising processes: Streamlining operations and removing bottlenecks to improve efficiency.

• Leveraging technology: Using software, automation, and other tools to handle larger volumes of work.

• Expanding capacity: Increasing production capacity, supply chain efficiency, or service delivery to meet higher demand.

• Building a strong team: Growing your workforce strategically, hiring key people, and delegating effectively to maintain operational smoothness as the business expands.

Meet Santeni, founder of Dinner at San’s

Scaling is a critical phase for entrepreneurs. We caught up with one who is taking her culinary business to new heights— without sacrificing quality or brand identity. 

Meet Santeni, former stylist and now founder of Dinner at San’s. Dinner at San’s offers authentic, multipurpose Jamaican catering and has secured high-profile contracts with clients such as GRM Daily, Universal Music, Warner Records, 0207 Def Jam and VEVO—providing nearly 100 bookings in the past year alone. Santeni is successfully scaling her culinary business, growing from a solo operation to a thriving team of four. In today’s Founder Spotlight, she shares valuable insights on scaling a successful culinary business, all while balancing the challenges of being a new mum.

Having a vision and staying true to it.

Before launching Dinner at San’s I was a stylist, so I’ve always had an eye for something different. Whether it's for our own brand, or meeting a specific client brief, maintaining a clear vision is important for me. Now that we have a team of four, it’s no different. We all work towards bringing that vision to life. 

Reputation is key: your product should speak for itself.

Building a strong brand reputation is definitely important for us. Word of mouth recommendations have been the biggest contributor to the growth of Dinner at San’s. We get most of our bookings from word of mouth (which signals that we’re maintaining our reputation well). 

I think the desire to build a strong reputation stems from two things: one, having my name (Santeni) attached to the brand and wanting to do it justice, and two, the fact that my first ever booking was an industry video shoot. This definitely helped to build our niche and set the tone for our reputation, and we’ve worked hard to maintain it ever since.

Growth will come. Embrace the teething stage.

I’m still learning how to manage the pressures of business while staying passionate about the craft. It’s always been my goal for my food to be authentic — I’m a first-generation immigrant, so I don’t ever want to lose that authenticity. But at the same time, I have to balance the corporate side of things and of course meeting client’s needs. Overall, it’s a work in progress and I’m learning all the lessons in real time. For example, before I had a really good accountant, I had to learn the consequences of not having one… In the past I’ve also lost out on business due to not being on top of emails — and bringing a new baby in the mix adds the extra struggle but I'm learning! A goal of mine is to expand so the day-to-day can be managed separately.

Consistency and ownership are everything.

A big thing I had to learn was being consistent with my niche. At the start I wanted to take on every single job, but now I’m hyper-focused on serving my niche.

I’d say ownership is very important. My advice to anyone building a business or looking to scale, would be to trademark, trademark, trademark! If there’s anything you think will make you money in the future, trademark it. We learned this the hard way when a major competitor stole the name of one of our signature dishes. They’re way bigger than us and there was nothing I could do. So I’d say, no matter how new you feel you are to the game, get your trademarks in order.

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To book Dinner at San’s for Production or corporate catering, visit their booking page.