Blitzscaling

What enabled Airbnb to dominate, or even to revolutionize the tourism industry in less than 5 years? Or Facebook to reach one billion users 8 years after being created on a student’s computer in a Harvard dorm? Reid Hoffman, co-founder of PayPal and LinkedIn, consultant to start-ups, shares in this book the approaches devised by “hypergrowth” champions.

The commonality that characterizes them is their determination to make speed of growth their top priority. This leads them to frequently adopt practices that diverge from commonly accepted precepts in sound business management: use of far from optimal solutions to resolve an issue rapidly rather than perfectly, giving up on managing up the crises as long as they don’t slow down the acquisition of new clients, etc.

The book first presents the logic behind the blitzscaling strategy—that is the development of the organization at a phenomenal pace to outpace competitors. It identifies the business model conditions that enable such a strategy. It then reviews what this entails in business management terms—with often-unorthodox practices. By relying on his experience and on his network in the Silicon Valley, the author illustrates his analysis with numerous examples, often surprising, sometimes difficult to replicate, always useful to open up to new ways of considering company management.