In the early days of start-up life – when numbers are few and ideas are plenty – it’s easy to maintain a vibrant, collaborative culture. Everyone feels part of an exciting adventure with huge potential.

However as numbers grow, and new faces increasingly pop up around the office, it becomes harder to maintain the close knit bonds that keeps start-up spirit alive during times of uncertainty.

Indeed, while founders and original team members are passionate about the company – what about employee number 70? As you succeed and scale, a certain degree of process, control and structure have to be in place to maximise efficiency and ensure the company moves in the right direction.

So how do you streamline processes without letting bureaucracy kill innovation?

Welcome feedback

A flat culture empowers employees and draws a clear path to growth in a company. It also encourages an atmosphere of openness and transparency that speeds up decision-making and company advancement faster than a rigid hierarchy does.

Practically speaking, this is achieved by encouraging everyone to contribute ideas regularly. Nevertheless, that’s a much simpler, less political proposition when you’re talking about a team of five. As the company grows, it becomes more complicated. In an organisation full of big personalities, some of the best ideas from less forthcoming people will go unheard for fear they aren’t good enough.

One way of getting around this is an anonymous central inbox that welcomes all kinds of feedback: from suggesting items for the kitchen to a new feature on the company website. And, by making it completely inclusive to all, it sparks creativity across the entire team.

No, not every idea should be implemented – but every single one should be heard and considered. Nothing kills start-up spirit faster than prioritising senior management egos over honest employee input.

Build bonds with staff

Ensuring that employee number 100 feels as valued as employee number three is a challenge. However, it’s important to make the effort to learn people’s names and get to know staff individually.

Something as simple as mixing up the office-seating plan to seat executives among everyone else is an easy way to begin integrating and getting to know one another.  It also fosters the kind of closeness you had in the early days.

This shouldn’t just be limited to the office walls, but through fun social activities that encourage people to let loose and socialise. Taking the time to get to know who your employees are away from their desks helps cultivate an atmosphere of trust and build cross-company bonds that make coming to work every day an exciting prospect.

Have a North Star

Certainly one of the biggest challenges of scaling a start-up and keeping the innovative spirit alive is keeping aligned on the company vision and having a ‘North Star’ that everyone works towards. You can have as many processes in place as you want, but without everyone’s beliefs and mindsets mapped to the same goals, these are futile.

American entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuck’s North Star is one day owning the New York Jets; Bill Gates’ is to end global poverty. However, it takes considerable effort to ensure an organisation lives a founder’s vision day to day.

It requires constant communication on the direction of the company – its goals, strategy and values – to ensure every employee understands where the company is heading, how it will get there and why this is so important.

This can be achieved through regular company meetings with stakeholders and updates on everything from impressive stats, to customer stories. Continually reminding people of the founder’s vision keeps employees invested in the business, and avoids bad decisions further down the road.

Find ways to stay small

Think of what makes start-ups special. Rather than those traits being a consequential by-product of close collaboration between small teams that previously you didn’t have to think about – make a point to prioritise them.

Using new technologies is an effective way to ‘stay small’ by streamlining processes and facilitating constant communication across your organisation. Another way is revisiting your company values often to maintain company culture as you grow.

If one of your values is entrepreneurial spirit, for example, make sure you continue a programme of training days and workshops as new people join, and encourage people from all levels to try out new technologies, attend industry events and report learnings back to the rest of the company. Use your company values as touch points and find new ways to apply them as you grow.

The key to keeping start-up spirit alive as you grow is remembering who you are as a company and why you started in the first place. You have to make sure every new starter understands this, too. Remember in the beginning when everyone had a voice and no idea was too crazy? Or, when you sat wherever you liked?

It’s those core principles – openness, transparency and innovation – that will keep the start-up spirit alive as your company doubles and triples in size.

Sebastian Lewis is CEO at Mettrr Technologies.