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What does "High Growth" mean? Based on the kindle preview this is a book containing startup advice which includes how to scale up your business in terms of hiri

What does "High Growth" mean? Based on the kindle preview this is a book containing startup advice which includes how to scale up your business in terms of hiring and acquisitions but not in terms of growing revenue and profits. In a way this advice optimises large portions of Silicon Valley where large companies in terms of employees and venture capital funding produce very little profit. A case in point being Stripe itself. Stripe employees can't tell you how to grow into a profitable company because they haven't achieved that yet. But they can tell you how to grow your HR department and how to acquire other companies because Stripe has done that.

tlb 8y ago
Companies like Stripe can become profitable in a simple way: by cutting R&D. And they'd stay profitable for a while, before fading into obsolescence. For most tech companies, the right long-term strategy is to spend heavily on R&D and growth, using up all profits and some investor money to do so. The exception is established companies in a declining industry, where the right answer is to cut R&D and growth to nothing and try to extract as much profit as possible in the remaining years.
eladgil 8y ago
"High Growth" in this case means companies that are scaling revenue, team, and complexity of business. Companies included here are meant to be "post product/market fit". In other words, they are selling something their customers really want, have fast growing revenue, and are either unit-economic positive or have a path to it. While come technology companies (or retail, or other companies) are profitable from day 1, many instead chose to invest in growth early on to go for market share and win the market. They then hike prices, cross-sell product, or drop costs at scale and then spin off a ton of cash. In Silicon Valley these companies are usually funded by VCs. In other industries, they may have different types of loans or in some cases private equity, VC, or friends and family money. In either case, the companies will share common issues - How do I add executives in functions I have never dealt with? E.g. a CFO or GC? How does my role as CEO evolve as the team grows and I am no longer needed to do the things I used to do when we were 5 people? Etc. This book definitely has a Silicon Valley Tech bias, as that is what I know best. Anecdotally, I have been told by people in non-tech industries who saw an early copy that some of the "people-centric" chapters are more broadly relevant. But rapidly scaling technology companies will definitely benefit the most from it. In terms of growing revenue and profits, I think a number of books focus on that. E.g. how to build a sales org, or compensate them, or different channel strategies. Those are really valuable topics but I felt they were better covered than some of the topics I focus on. Thanks for taking a look! :)
rhacker 8y ago
Honestly when I read "High Growth" I literally thought Sama was getting into the weed business.

tlb 8y ago

Companies like Stripe can become profitable in a simple way: by cutting R&D. And they'd stay profitable for a while, before fading into obsolescence. For most tech companies, the right long-term strategy is to spend heavily on R&D and growth, using up all profits and some investor money to do so. The exception is established companies in a declining industry, where the right answer is to cut R&D and growth to nothing and try to extract as much profit as possible in the remaining years.

eladgil 8y ago

"High Growth" in this case means companies that are scaling revenue, team, and complexity of business. Companies included here are meant to be "post product/market fit". In other words, they are selling something their customers really want, have fast growing revenue, and are either unit-economic positive or have a path to it. While come technology companies (or retail, or other companies) are profitable from day 1, many instead chose to invest in growth early on to go for market share and win the market. They then hike prices, cross-sell product, or drop costs at scale and then spin off a ton of cash. In Silicon Valley these companies are usually funded by VCs. In other industries, they may have different types of loans or in some cases private equity, VC, or friends and family money. In either case, the companies will share common issues - How do I add executives in functions I have never dealt with? E.g. a CFO or GC? How does my role as CEO evolve as the team grows and I am no longer needed to do the things I used to do when we were 5 people? Etc. This book definitely has a Silicon Valley Tech bias, as that is what I know best. Anecdotally, I have been told by people in non-tech industries who saw an early copy that some of the "people-centric" chapters are more broadly relevant. But rapidly scaling technology companies will definitely benefit the most from it. In terms of growing revenue and profits, I think a number of books focus on that. E.g. how to build a sales org, or compensate them, or different channel strategies. Those are really valuable topics but I felt they were better covered than some of the topics I focus on. Thanks for taking a look! :)

rhacker 8y ago

Honestly when I read "High Growth" I literally thought Sama was getting into the weed business.