What do rapidly scaling companies have in common? What do they do for fast growth? In competitive marketplaces, rapid growth can increase a business’s potential to succeed and afford them exponential value growth. Some of the world’s biggest and most successful companies have prospered because of this rapid growth or “Blitzscaling”. 

Chris Yeh, Co-author of Blitzscaling & Co-Founder - Blitzscaling Academy, and Reid Hoffaman, Partner - Greylock, joined us as our first speakers on the main stage today. 

They co-wrote the book “Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies” and they shared some tips about how your company can win the growth race. While Chris started out with an introduction to Blitzscaling, the session turned into a an interview with Reid providing insights as to where he sees opportunities in the future.

They emphasized that acting quickly could give a company enough lead-room to significantly differentiate themselves from their competitors. 

“Are you going to be able to out-race your competitors to reach critical scale and win that market?”

Chris acknowledged that there are a number of strange rules for Blitzscaling, including speed over efficiency, with a number of counterintuitive rules including “ignore your customers”. He explained this by saying, “The customers you have today may not be the customers that are going to make you successful in the future”.

Will Blitzscaling work for you?

Chris was realistic about how and when to Blitzscale a business. He highlighted two essential elements.  

• One, the “Winner Take Most Market” where there are opportunities for land-grabs. The race metaphor outlined his position well. By Blitzscaling, a company could take advantage of possibilities before their competitors could catch up. 
• Two, the scalability of distribution, where the value of the product grows with the number of users. This second point would be the element that enables the rapid and viral growth.

Can established companies Blitzscale?

One of the key take-aways was that there’s no end to Blitzscaling. Chris encouraged even larger companies to look for opportunities to Blitzscale new businesses.

What are some common traits of successful entrepreneurs?

In the interview section, Reid spent time thinking about common traits of successful entrepreneurs and he highlighted three. 

• Think originally. 
• Be attentive to learning, and not just from data and books, but from those around you. He mentioned that asking a friend “what’s wrong with my case?” and being open to being wrong will make your reasoning much sharper.
• Culture and recruiting - Culture is what is sustained as people come and go, and rapid changes are made. He emphasized that it’s important to have a strong mission and culture not just within the working core of the company but also with those who are tangentially related such as board members and financiers. 

What do you think are the critical success factors in emerging markets like Thailand?

Reid highlighted the need to have global ambitions. He recommended looking for ways to learn from people and resources from all over the world. Namely to think globally but start locally and ask, how can what works on a global scale work here in my city?

 “Learn and learn to run the race together”

Unique challenges in financing and infrastructure are a reality but the world is becoming more global so how can you learn from, and apply, global knowledge. You should have that ambition.  

What can be done in today’s economic climate?

Though Blitzscaling involves taking risks, both speakers were optimistic about opportunities to be found in the current global economic climate. Reid outlined how he sees  the current landscape of funding, saying, 

“[Growth] funding will be cautious, will be expensive, will be slow, and so part of that is, when you’re thinking about these kinds of growth rounds, you need to think about how we preserve capital. How do we start playing defense?”

They reminded the audience that everyone is moving slower and they suggested looking for areas to make even a small amount of headway that can be leveraged when things pick back up again. 

Reid mentioned that turbulent times are when entrepreneurs really need to step forward and build new companies products and services. 

So how can your company play defense? How can it play offense?

Adaptability ended up being one of the significant defensive solutions. Adaptability means the ability to look at Blitzscaling in the greater market context and also means constant reevaluation and refinement. 

Chris’s offensive position was that you should ask yourself the question “what is easier now than it was before?” Perhaps recruiting is easier, perhaps it’s the best time to increase market share, or maybe any small but quick changes can be magnified into a big lead down the road. “It’s easier to win a race when there’s fewer competitors”

What’s the vision for the future of technology?

The final take-away offered by Chris and Reid was that there are multiple forces that are driving the future. While each epoch may have had one innovation be its defining technology, going forward they’re going to be interactive. Technologies will be more connected than ever and he said we ought to expect “unexpected cross-overs”.