Konsultori Resource on Scaling. The best evergreen knowledge pieces from the web. The archive has been growing since 2016 and collects analyses and frameworks, but it also showcases our key topics. We present the most interesting articles here so you can read them and delve deeper.
When is the right time to scale up?
Harvard Professor Tom Eisenmann presents a very simple check to assess for yourself whether the company is ready to jump into the next massive growth phase – the RAWI model (Ready – Able – Willing – Impelled). I usually already discuss the R with entrepreneurs to stop them from burning money. The Able (organization and resources) often comes too late in the preparation and you lose time. I actually take Willing for granted with most people, but the I – Impelled is the “window of opportunity” that unfortunately often closes quickly. The whole thing can then be summarized: Can the team execute the right things? But more on this from Tom Eisenmann himself.
The different growth laws between startups and people create tensions – how to deal with hypergrowth
Executive coach Halim advises fast-growing start-ups in the US. In his article, he makes a striking statement about why startups or other fast-growing companies experience “growing pains”. The people and the company grow in different patterns, creating tension. While companies can grow exponentially, growth among people tends to be linear. In the worst case, employees cannot keep up with the organization of work. The question is, how can the organization and the people in it deal with this without the system breaking down? The glue could be the shared vision and at the same time means that a lot is constantly changing for those involved. Read more here.
Fascinating insights into high-growth
Very exciting insights from Elad Gil from Color Genomics about high growth. Among other things, it deals with growing organizations, the decision between outsourcing and own employees, later-stage fundraising and much more. You can find the report here.
Why startups fail
The first and most important reason is that they often launch products on the market that nobody is interested in. Other reasons for the failure of start-ups include financial difficulties, the wrong team composition or too much competition in the market. These are the statements of start-up founders who report on their experiences and the failure of the company in retrospect. You can find more information on what can go wrong and how best to deal with it here.
Die Wachstumsformel für Startups
In the search for future unicorns among startups, the high-value contribution of customers is important in addition to strong growth. Abhas Gupta breaks down the value contribution to the growth formula (LTV/CAC > x), which relates the value of a customer over its order duration to the customer acquisition costs. All companies with a value contribution of at least 3 times the customer acquisition costs are therefore potential unicorns. [Note: Unicorns are companies and firms valued at over one billion dollars. Find out more here.
A few good startup valuation examples up to Evernote and whether you can make the growth formula over 3 (hint: nope) can be found here.
Startups on the way to scale-up
Pradeep Agarwal explains on LinkedIn what is important in the first three years after a start-up, how to manage growth towards scale-up, how to set the right focus and how the role of start-up founders is reshaped and challenged over time. He provides a checklist for each year, with content to consider during this period. Read the whole article here.
Pixel Hotel: An Airbnb that wasn’t one after all
Back in 2006, a collective of architects and artists designed a completely new type of hotel, with rooms scattered throughout the city and smart social media support. Sounds a bit like the now world-famous company Airbnb! Nevertheless, the comparison is not quite accurate: “[…] there was a whole process of design considerations, more focused on creating a truly unique experience. In short, if you transformed the Airbnb idea to Pixel, it would be a much more design- and experience-focused operation.” Here are more details about the Pixel Hotel in Linz and why it is not comparable to Airbnb.
The AirBnB scaling story
Today’s global super player started very small in San Francisco 6 years ago. In this article on scaling at AirBnB, you can read about how the journey continued, how it overcame several mishaps and how AirBnB became a platform that records growth of 300 to 600 per cent per year. It is exciting to see at what critical size organic growth could occur and what they did to get that far.
Hyperscalability in 3 Dimensionen
Omar Mohout, Professor of Entrepreneurship at Antwerp Management School, clearly explains which elements a business model must have to be potentially hyper-scalable. What is hyperscalability? The ability of an infrastructure to grow disproportionately with increasing demand. It shows the three basic pillars of hyper-scalability in a business model: a company is hyper-scalable if it offers added value to millions of customers at virtually no cost and does so with a disproportionately small team. Read more at Disruption is dead.