Part III:

Scaling

“The last 10 percent it takes to launch something takes as much energy as the first 90 percent.”

Rob Kalin, founder, Etsy1

“See things in the present even if they are in the future.”

Larry Ellison, cofounder, Oracle2

By now, people, strategy, and execution are redirected from concept, prototyping, and validation to deliver the real thing. How you allocate time and effort to the demands of your fledgling product or business is shifting to make it in the market.

Seeking revealed the beginnings of ideas to explore and develop by encouraging looking around, playing with ideas, and building early models. Seeking required observing people, shaping hypotheses and then tossing those hypotheses aside for new ones. The goal was to find problems big and meaningful enough to solve.

Seeding’s goal was to apply early insights to define viable solutions with a large enough market of users, based on back-of-the-envelope precision. Prototypes, a business model, and data gelled into the pitch for resources, and informed a strategy including how to execute.

To scale, attention shifts to driving sales, attracting users and buyers, and earning loyalty, engagement, and referrals. The pressure is on to figure out how to hit the numbers, and understand where you were right or under- or overestimated. Business model expectations were based on best guess assumptions, some data, and lots of hypotheses.

Scaling expands requirements. Commitments to defining and delivering on user needs, iterating quickly, and aligning resources do not stop. You are juggling balls and spinning plates. To keep everything in the air, Scaling offers guidance, stories, concepts and tools for the last three pieces of the framework:

  1. Launch. Business model expectations will be pushed harder, tested, proven or disproven, expanded, and refined. What does a successful launch look like? What does it take to be a launch leader? They are likely the change maker, but may be someone stepping in with leadership and execution capabilities to grow in market and continue to innovate. Why do launches fail and how can pitfalls be avoided? What learning can be drawn from businesses where you might not have guessed there are relevant lessons?
  2. Testing and experimentation. The needs for agility and iteration do not end. Testing and experimentation are a mindset, not just skills or steps in a process. What happens post-launch? How do the habits of ongoing learning, challenging norms, and trial-and-error pursuits live when hitting the numbers becomes the daily priority? What does a test-and-learn culture look like?
  3. Anticipating and adapting. No business sits still. Leaders who once seemed like unstoppable winners lose when they fail to see success as temporary. What once made them great — seizing upon an insight ignored by incumbents — is no longer enough. Marketplace successes stay on top when leaders anticipate and adapt. They shape the next horizon line.

Scale used to mean big absolute size. Standards for scale still include yardsticks of sales, revenue, and profits. These results were enabled by complex infrastructure. But traditional requirements to scale a customer base have fallen away. And, in a world where extreme personalization is technologically possible (and increasingly expected), big infrastructure can turn out to be a burden. There is no longer a best definition for how big the infrastructure should be — except, perhaps, no bigger than necessary, and as small as possible.

Can entire sectors transform? Can all stakeholders share innovation successes? Or do we live in a winner-take-all world? Entire pre-digital sectors are disappearing. What will the next era of economic and social development look like? How can change makers shape positive outcomes for society at large?

Notes

1. Teri Evans, “Creating Etsy’s Handmade Marketplace,” wsj.com, March 30, 2010.

2. Eugene Kim, “Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff Built a $50 Billion Empire By Following 7 Lessons From His Nemesis Larry Ellison,” businessinsider.com, September 5, 2015.