When a company scales fast, teams either evolve to match the growth or break under pressure.
At Acquisit, growth has never been theoretical. From a founding team of five to now more than 80 people across three different countries. Scaling wasn’t just about hiring more people, it required carefully designing teams from scratch.
We sat down with Ed, Co-Founder of Acquisit, to explore how teams should be built, structured, and protected as a company grows in a fast-paced environment.
Complementarity over similarity
When asked what makes a “dream team,” Ed didn’t talk about individual excellence or hiring the best resumes. “The first thing that comes to mind is complementarity,” he said. “If we get the same profile five times, we would have a problem.”
Strong teams, in his view, are not built by cloning a single profile. They’re built by intentionally bringing together different personalities, perspectives, and strengths, especially in a highly client-facing business.
At Acquisit, that means balancing highly technical profiles, engineering, and data specialists, with people operating closer to strategy, creativity, and daily client relationships. Ed often compares team building to designing a sports team. “You need people who play defense, people in the middle, people on offense.”
Standards define performance
Even though complementarity is important, on its own, it’s not enough. “There’s a rule I strongly believe in,” Ed said. “The lowest standard you accept becomes the new standard.”
In a fast-paced environment like digital marketing, where websites run 24/7 and clients operate continuously, small drops in quality can compound quickly.
If mistakes are tolerated without intervention, they slowly redefine what is acceptable. So, designing teams for scale means clearly defining the quality bar, engagement levels, and ownership expected.
Alignment, Ed explained, is not about sameness. It’s about shared expectations around delivery and accountability. “Complementarity, diversity of skills, and alignment,” Ed concluded. “Those are the three elements we look for.”
Recruiting with intentionality
As Acquisit expanded into Beirut and opened its second office to serve the region, the hiring dynamic changed.
When hiring for Dubai’s office, relocation adds commitment. In Lebanon, however, candidates don’t have to move countries. That difference plays a huge role in their decision-making process. “We have to be even more thorough when recruiting,” Ed said. Our recruitment process includes:
- Technical assessments
- Face-to-face evaluation
- Cultural fit interviews
- Exposure to multiple team members
“Throughout the interview process, you would meet at a minimum six people at Acquisit,” he explained. But why is that? “It’s to test for the same three things I mentioned earlier: Complementarity, diversity of skills, and alignment.
Scale amplifies hiring mistakes. So the process must filter for both capability and cultural compatibility. While keeping in mind that it’s a learning process. “Nothing is set in stone,” Ed added. “We keep iterating our process.”
Catching the signals early
In high-performance environments, team issues surface quickly.
Acquisit operates in a real-time, performance-driven ecosystem, breakdowns often show up in client results first, and waiting for visible damage is too late.
“It’s our role as directors and managers to capture the soft signals early,” Ed said. Those signals might include:
- Miscommunication with clients
- Misallocation of time
- Capacity overload
- A mismatch between skill level and responsibility
Sometimes the issue is structural; that’s when recruitment needs to accelerate. Sometimes it’s educational, that’s when our training must adapt to the changing digital landscape.
And sometimes, it’s a fit issue. “In some cases, switching managers can solve it. In others, we need to part ways.” Designing teams for scale requires constant calibration, not reaction.
Rethinking the role of a manager
As teams grow, management must evolve too.
Ed challenged a common model: promoting the best technical performer into management without preparing them to lead people.
“When you reach the level of manager, you are no longer responsible only for deliverables. You are now responsible for a team.” That changes everything.
A manager’s role becomes:
- Identifying skill gaps.
- Designing team composition.
- Deciding whether gaps are solved through recruitment, training, or coaching.
“There’s no one way of managing,” Ed emphasized. He advises managers to design their teams around where they personally create the most impact.
If a manager excels in client relationships, they should structure support around execution. If they are technically strong, they should complement that strength with relationship-focused team members. “Design your team and your day in a way that brings the most impact and fulfills you the most.”
Building teams that don’t break
Scaling a company is not just about increasing its headcount. It’s about:
- Designing complementary teams
- Protecting standards
- Hiring deliberately
- Detecting friction early
Growth exposes weaknesses. It magnifies gaps and tests systems. But when teams are properly designed, scale becomes sustainable. As Ed put it: “You need people that complement each other and align on the vision, on the ways of working, and on the culture.”
Because at the end of the day, sustainable growth is not powered by individuals. It’s powered by teams built with intention.
