This page collects links to blog posts, articles and books about scaling challenges in startups.
Companion pages compile readings on organizational and culture; startup recruiting; startup failure; and startup mindset, i.e., the attitudes/values that improve success odds for entrepreneurs. Reading lists on other topics related to startup management are listed to the right and in the nav bar above.
- Ben Horowitz's book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, focuses largely on organizational challenges confronting scaling startups, as do a number of posts by Horowitz, including this one
- The book Startup CEO by Matt Blumberg of Return Path focuses on management challenges in scaling startups; Blumberg's post on building the business vs. building the company echoes themes in the book
- The book How Google Works, by Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg, describes approaches that Google management took when scaling; this anonymous Quora post describes how Google's functional organizational structure led to frequent mistakes when scaling
- Reid Hoffman discusses his concept of blitzscaling in this interview; he co-led a Stanford course on the topic, for which videos and class notes are available, as well as one student's key takeaways
- YC's Sam Altman offers advice for later-stage startups
- Molly Graham of Quip (and formerly Google and Facebook) discusses pressures on teams as a startup scales rapidly
- Open Table CEO Christa Quarles on managing through rapid growth
- HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan shares lessons learned about scaling leadership
- HowAboutWe co-founder Aaron Schildkrout cautions against delusional thinking about hyper-growth
- I've written course notes on organizational challenges and pacing issues confronting scaling startups
- Union Square Ventures' Albert Wenger discusses how scaling startups should think about growth vs. profitability tradeoffs
- VC Mark Suster on some key hires and organizational changes required as a startup "levels up," round by round.
- Greylock's Josh Elman considers whether/when rapidly scaling startups should be concerned about their lack of a clear plan for monetization
- Michael Skok, GP at Northbridge Venture Partners, on how to think about optimal pace when scaling
- McKinsey research shows how growth is a powerful driver of software company valuation, and how difficult it is to sustain hyper-growth
- Jeff Bussgang of Flybridge Capital (and my colleague at HBS) describes how functional challenges change as a startup scales and discusses other scaling challenges; see also Jeff's case studies of scaling at TripAdvisor, Akamai, and athenahealth
- Paul Graham of Y Combinator on why startup = growth, and a response from Mark Suster
- Jeff Jordan of a16z on how eBay managed growth
- Steve Blank on attributes of a scalable startup; he also describes a "Peter Pan Syndrome," in which startups are loathe to abandon values that served them well in early stages, but do not sync with evolving marketplace realities
- Erin Griffith of pandodaily on management challenges when scaling
