Starting your business is never the same as scaling it. Moe Abdou & Sean Ammirati explore the growth strategies that continue to fuel blue-chip companies like Facebook, Tesla and Automatic.
The Science of Exponential Growth
Sean Ammirati knows a thing or two about growing companies; he built and sold multiple businesses in the media and software industries. As the Chief Operating Officer, he played a critical role in the evolution of the media portal, ReadWriteWeb prior to its acquisition in 2011 to SAY Media. As an investor at Birchmere Ventures, he bets on and mentors Founders and their teams who are building prominent, community driven commerce startups. Perhaps his most important contribution is the impact he’s having by teaching entrepreneurship at his alma mater, Carnegie Mellon University. Ammirati is a doer who feels it his responsibility to send the elevator back down.
In writing his latest book, The Science of Growth: How Facebook Beat Friendster — and How Nine Other Startups Left the Rest in the Dust, he set out to answer one fundamental question that every successful startup has to answer – What happens after you find product-market fit?
So much is made of the Startup phase, still for every company able to make it through that sprint, thousands more will flounder simply because they lack the know-how to transition from the garage to an actual growing business. Succeeding at the next level requires much more than creating a mobile app or raising additional capital; it demands leadership, experience, and a real focus on organizational infrastructure. It’s an absolute certainty that the skills that helped you conquer the startup phase aren’t the same as the ones the are essential to building an enduring business.
As you listen to my conversation with Ammirati (@SeanAmmirati), you’ll notice that he speaks as if he’s the one facing these growing pains. He shares memorable mistakes, decodes the key catalysts for growth, and explains why a culture of discipline is absolutely essential to winning the scale game.
Here are the few of the questions we explore:
The mindset of a modern entrepreneur
The most underestimated aspect of building something great
The founders’ most important responsibilities during the early days
The two key ingredients for any idea to scale
When you know that you’re solving the right problem
Are platforms an applicable scale strategy for most growing companies
Can viral actually be a strategy for growth
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Follow Sean Ammirati on Twitter: @SeanAmmirati