GSA Pre-Launch Event | Blitzscaling to Outpace the Competition in Times of Uncertainty

This panel and event insights provide a great representation for how the Global Scaling Academy community will grant its members access to professionals who can help solve their scaling challenges on a regular basis. If you didn’t have time to catch the event, here are some highlights! 

Catch up on the Insights in under 5 minutes: 

Insights from Chris: Blitzscaling as a means of battling the unexpected circumstances imposed by Covid-19 

• It is difficult to scale… Wherever you are in the global sphere, whichever industry you work in, you need a framework to scale. Blitzscaling is that framework when complimented by other resources such as knowledge and connections. This is why the GSA community was created: an online community designed to bring together our friends, our co-collaborators trusted partners into an intimate setting where members will actually get to know one another and work together with these handpicked experts they need to work with to scale their business.
• Blitzscaling represents the way that the dominant technology companies of the future are being built. That is true whether they're being built as startups that are coming out of a garage, or whether they're being built as innovation efforts within a larger organization.
• We live in a world where everyone is connected together; more and more markets are “winner takes all” markets where it's really essential to move quickly. So GSA attempts to make sure people understand the concepts that will allow them to move more quickly, understand the circumstances under which it makes sense to scale, and the circumstances under which it makes sense to grow more slowly.
• Blitzscaling is the pursuit of rapid growth by prioritizing speed over efficiency in the face of uncertainty. But during the pandemic, there are some companies that are growing very rapidly, while other companies are suffering. The key is that blitz scaling in the time of COVID-19 means the pursuit of rapid change by prioritizing speed over efficiency. COVID-19 is having unequal impacts around the world. It’s very much like a sailing boat in a race that's trying to sail through a storm. You're trying to sail into the wind. You have to be very nimble and be able to adjust your course and adjust your sails constantly to keep up with the latest developments. But if you're able to tack into the wind more effectively, you could actually gain on your competition. In this respect blitzscaling is a question of what is your competitive status relative to the rest of the industry; so if you're able to adjust quickly, you can actually improve your status. Take Airbnb: a travel company  initially greatly affected by the pandemic. But, since then Airbnb has pivoted and changed aggressively in order to adapt to the new realities as people noticed they can work from anywhere in the longer-term. Now, it looks like Airbnb's bookings in 2020 are now about 70% higher than they were in 2019.

Insights from Mark: How the corporations and startups in the ecosystem are finding useful ways to navigate the situation

• Many early stage startups noticed a shrinking target customer base and had to adopt agility and flexibility as a main strategy, while pivoting towards services that were needed during these trying times. You need to be open to understanding where your business can grow, what the right product market fit is and what the competitive landscape looks like. This kind of flexibility for new possibilities starts in the entrepreneur’s head and not in the equipment.

Insights from Dennis: Why Data Matters

• You need speed to stay ahead of the game. A lot of large companies are driven by habits that deter them from observing the outside world. But, they can actually access the world of opportunities through a data-driven approach, giving them insights into different perspectives they weren’t aware of and drive innovation for new opportunities.

Insights from Sharon: It’s all about the connections

• Despite its small population of about 9 million, Israel has 9 thousand active startups and over 400 accelerator programs. In fact, the VC investment per capita is three times larger than the US. 
• Consistent and strong networks help during uncertain times. You need to be able to build a bridge between the local and international. Having access to the right people at the right time is essential to your success. Having someone that knows you, is willing to challenge you, who has the connectivity, as well as the desire to help you get plugged in at the right time to the people that can help you, just like the people currently in this panel, is critical.

Insights from Chris: Necessary Conditions for deciding whether you should move faster relative to your competition

• There's a series of growth factors and growth limiters that tell you whether or not a company is blitzscalable. What's interesting is that many of these growth factors, growth limiters are true of any company. For example, you need to have a big global market, have high gross margins so that your company makes money, achieve product market fit, and be able to scale your organization and infrastructure.
• There are two growth factors that stand out: 

• The first is that it is a “winner takes most market” is essential as it means that if you're the first to achieve critical scale, you gain competitive advantages that make it almost impossible for someone to catch up. 
• The second thing is you need to have a strong distribution and go to market strategy. And that often takes the form of leveraging existing networks or of virality in the product. That is important because if you need to reach critical mass, then your go to market tells you how quickly you can reach critical mass and how much it's going to cost.So the quicker you're able to reach critical mass, the less it's going to cost. The more important it is to grow as quickly as possible so that you can have these effects kick in. What you're looking for is for the pandemic to be something that allows you to really drive the trial of your product. And if you're able to drive towards that critical scale more quickly during the pandemic, then the pandemic can actually help you achieve that leadership position that kicks in those competitive advantages.

• Look at the pandemic as an opportunity rather than an obstacle. And that's the very thinking that went into the GSA online community. It's a full spectrum solution where you can connect with fellow entrepreneurs who are at the same stage as you, and connect with people who are further along that can tell you about what they just went through. 

Looking for more? Join the GSA community and take advantage of the lifetime membership special, which includes the courses, the programs, the regular events and topical discussion. It's all on a web platform with a mobile app, 24/7 access and over 200 live events like this a year with experts where you'll get to bring your challenges and get real time feedback.