Why Scale a Startup?

Overview

Class Central Tips

If you want to find out how to begin to scale up a start-up company, this course is for you! This course will guide you through all the key questions you need to ask yourself to prepare to scale up a start-up, provide you with key tips and frameworks to begin the scaleup process for a start-up, and offer insights from real, successful companies who have been in your shoes before and have scaled up their start-ups. In this course, you'll learn to differentiate between growth and scaling, identify the key challenges of scaling up (and solutions to these challenges), and pick up best practices for scaling a start-up effectively and efficiently to build a weatherproof company. You'll get practical advice and big-picture insights from well-known companies and experts in the field who have scaled up their start-ups so you can see what has worked for other companies and develop a "toolbox" of scaleup solutions. Make your scaleup journey as smooth and surprise-free as possible - with this course, you´ll know the types of issues that arise when start-ups scale up and learn how to solve them!

Syllabus

Scaling a Startup

This week, we will take a high-level look at the place of scaling and scaleups within entrepreneurship and innovation and begin to formulate how scaleups and startups differ: when is it time to scale up? How do you transition from startup to scaleup? And what are some of the pitfalls of scaling up your company too soon?

What is a Scaleup?

What makes a scaleup different than a startup? What questions should you be asking yourself before you start to scale up? And does startup type determine scaleup strategy? These are a few of the key questions we will address in this module.

Scaling Fast vs. Scaling Slow: The Role of Risk

Is scaling a sprint or a marathon? That depends on your view on risk, your industry insight, and how weatherproof your company can be - all of which we will cover in this module.

Exponential Growth

We hear a lot about exponentiality, but what does it actually mean? In this module, we will establish the key differences between growth (which is linear) and scaling (which is exponential), looking at examples from successful companies to further illustrate this difference as we prepare to scale up.