10 insights on startup growth strategies — sean ammirati

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This presentation consists of highlights from the interview with Moe Abdou,

founder & host of 33voices®.

Sean Ammirati is a Partner at Birchmere Ventures, an early-stage ven-ture capital firm based in Pittsburgh, PA, and Palo Alto, CA, and is an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University.

Most recently, he was the COO of ReadWriteWeb, one of the most influential sites about the future of technology and innovation. Sean

was previously co-founder and CEO of mSpoke, a big data SaaS com-pany.

Sean Ammirati@SeanAmmirati

Partner at Birchmere Labs

Don’t confuse starting a company with scaling one, for the startup is hardly a smaller version of the bigger company. Exponential growth is likely to leverage one of these four catalyst:

Insight #1

Don’t confuse starting a company with scaling one, for the startup is hardly a smaller version of the bigger company. Exponential growth is likely to leverage one of these four catalyst:

Double Trigger Events - Random events that increase awareness

Insight #1

Don’t confuse starting a company with scaling one, for the startup is hardly a smaller version of the bigger company. Exponential growth is likely to leverage one of these four catalyst:

Drafting off of Platforms - An existing platform that needs your solution to augment their expe-

rience

Insight #1

Don’t confuse starting a company with scaling one, for the startup is hardly a smaller version of the bigger company. Exponential growth is likely to leverage one of these four catalyst:Optimizing Algorithms - Leveraging existing

software to elevate your solution

Insight #1

Don’t confuse starting a company with scaling one, for the startup is hardly a smaller version of the bigger company. Exponential growth is likely to leverage one of these four catalyst:

Viral Growth - Your existing customers become your most important promoters

Insight #1

Insight #2

Smart founders scale strategically, and never prematurely. Their most critical tasks early-on are:

Insight #2

Smart founders scale strategically, and never prematurely. Their most critical tasks early-on are:

To acquire new customers

Insight #2

Smart founders scale strategically, and never prematurely. Their most critical tasks early-on are:

To delight those customers with their solution

Insight #3

For any idea to be scalable, it must have these two ingredients:

Insight #3

For any idea to be scalable, it must have these two ingredients:

Projected Economies of Scale

Insight #3

For any idea to be scalable, it must have these two ingredients: Large Total Addressable Market

Insight #4

Reid Hoffman on the key considerations of Blitzscaling:

Insight #4

Reid Hoffman on the key considerations of Blitzscaling:

When do you Blitzscale?

Insight #4

Reid Hoffman on the key considerations of Blitzscaling:

Once you scale, you move from generalists to specialist - are you ready?

Insight #4

Reid Hoffman on the key considerations of Blitzscaling:

As you scale, you move from:• Everyone in the same room who are all doing

• People who are managing people and people who are doing

• Executives who are focused on scaling the organization, managers, and

people who are doing

Insight #4

Reid Hoffman on the key considerations of Blitzscaling:

Need to preserve innovation while scaling

Insight #4

Reid Hoffman on the key considerations of Blitzscaling:

Preserving adaptation vs operational excellence; moving fast means you will have

operational wastage

Insight #4

Reid Hoffman on the key considerations of Blitzscaling:

Global reach - be strategic

Insight #4

Reid Hoffman on the key considerations of Blitzscaling:

Capital requirements - Either have a good revenue model that you are reinvesting into operations - or raise

money through funding.

Insight #5

Successful startups often add constraints to their products to ensure

that the essence of the product experience is a positive one. McDonald’s patriarch

on his first McDonald’s experience:

I was fascinated by the effectiveness of thesystem they [the McDonald brothers] described that night. Each step in producing the limited menu was stripped down to its essence and

accomplished with minimal effort.

Insight #6

Here’s an important question for a founding team to ask once they’ve

proven their product/market fit:

Where are large groups of engaged potential customers, who are frustrated

because they aren’t aware of my solution, spending time today?

Insight #7

Your current customers can be one of your most significant growth engines as you scale

an innovative product or service provided you:

Insight #7

Your current customers can be one of your most significant growth engines as you scale

an innovative product or service provided you:Reduce the friction at the point when they

are most likely to make a referral

Insight #7

Your current customers can be one of your most significant growth engines as you scale

an innovative product or service provided you:Measure the effectiveness of different

interactions to increase sharing

Insight #8

The start of making data-informed decisions is to make sure that you’re

asking the right questions. Be clear on:

Insight #8

The start of making data-informed decisions is to make sure that you’re

asking the right questions. Be clear on:What the critical metrics for

your business are?

Insight #8

The start of making data-informed decisions is to make sure that you’re

asking the right questions. Be clear on:What the right goals for those metrics are?

Insight #8

The start of making data-informed decisions is to make sure that you’re

asking the right questions. Be clear on:How you can best publicly display

the metrics being used?

Insight #8

The start of making data-informed decisions is to make sure that you’re

asking the right questions. Be clear on:How you can encourage a culture

of experimentation?

Insight #9

At its core, a business with a network effect is one in which the value of the solution

exponentially increases as more customers take advantage of it; simply because new users want to interact with existing ones.

Think Facebook.

Insight #10

“With great companies, the consumers buy because the product is so good. They aren’t

spending [tens of millions] on marketing.”

- Bill Gurley

Reflect - Can viral be a strategic approach to growth

in your business?

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Presentation by Chase Jennings

Insights by Jenna Abdou

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