Nidhi Pant, Co-founder, S4S Technologies

My name is Nidhi Pant and I'm the co-founder of S4S Technologies. 

S4S stands for "science for society." At S4S, we convert ugly, cosmetically damaged produce into food ingredients. How we do it is by empowering smallholder women farmers to become processors. 

In the next five years, we want to reach 5 million farmers and work with 15,000 women entrepreneurs.

What were the indicators that you were ready to scale? 

We know that our organization is ready for scale when we have found a product-market fit. 

That means that first, there is a paying customer for our product. 

Second, whether we can make margins and profit out of it in a sustainable manner. That means we don't have to keep marketing our product. There is a pull from our customer. The customer demand is significant.

And third is that we have the right systems and processes built in the organization to scale it up from a few people in number to a larger scale.

Indicators of scaling readiness

• Significant customer demand and product-market fit

• Sustainable profit margins

• Established and efficient systems and processes 

How did you prepare for scaling your operations?

Some of the things that we prepare for growth, we do it in three ways. 

The first phase for us is to understand our customer and our products or services completely, very thoroughly. To understand that there is a proper demand for our products, and also that the pricing is right, the positioning is right. Everything related to the product is what we concretize first.

Second, we look at whether we have the right set of people and team members who can take our product to the market. And, do we have the right go-to-market channels? That means we have the right team to take this product to the market. Also, we have the right tools and the network to take our product to the market.

Third, do we have the right systems and processes to help our team and product when it is in the market?

To prepare for scale

• Understand customer demand and assess product pricing, positioning, and channels

• Assemble the right team to take the product to market at scale

• Establish processes to help the team market and sell the product