Managers manage contributors and execute detailed day-to-day plans. The types of senior team members you need to hire will change. Thus specialists may need to be hired from outside the org.

They perform functions better than generalists can, and you need them sooner than generalists can learn the job. They adapt quickly to the rapidly changing needs of the business in its volatile early days.Īt Village stage (100s of people), specialists are critical to scale. In the beginning up until 100 people, you should tend to hire generalists. An analogy to the military: “the marines take the beach, the army takes the country, and the police govern the country.” Here are a few critical ones: Generalists to SpecialistsĪt each stage of a company, different types of people are required to provide what the organization needs at that time. Declining rate of growth (relative to market and competition)Īs the company grows from a handful of people to 10s, then 100s, then 1000s of people, drastic changes in management need to happen.You stop blitzscaling when your business it outgrowing your current strategy. Blitzscaling is used for a specific purpose for a limited time, after which you turn to fastscaling or another type of company growth. Startups who act quickly can evade incumbents who aren’t focusing on the space.īlitzscaling are like fighter jet afterburners - you don’t switch them on and never turn them off.Can somebody else realize this opportunity earlier than me? If yes, moving faster reduces risk of competition.Blitzscaling often doesn’t work if another company has first-scaler advantage.The mechanisms that confer first-scaler advantage include network effects, returns to data, economies of scale.

These opportunities often involve positive feedback loops.

Often, this is when a technological innovation upends existing markets, creating large opportunities that incumbents are not well-suited to capture.

Market size and gross margins create enormous potential value, and there isn’t a dominant market leader.

Blitzscaling reid hoffman