You’re actually running for the launch point before your competition because the first to scale is what matters. What you’re doing is you’re running toward a place where the market will let you blitzscale as much as possible. You’re often in a situation where competition is coming or it’s already there and you have to think about how to beat it. But more often than not, for startups, you either have actual competition or prospective competition because in a hyper-connected world, competition can come from anywhere. If you’re in a complete space by yourself and have no competition and no need for critical mass, generally speaking, you’d do something that’s more like “fast scaling,” in which you measure your customer acquisition cost and focus on effectively spending your dollars and growing your organization in ways that minimizes chaos. What attributes do entrepreneurs need to better blitzscale their company? You choose to do so because that’s how you essentially become the first to scale. You are optimizing for growing your business and your customers at a fast rate, which means you’ll spend capital inefficiently and you will do it by taking risks in uncertain times. HOFFMAN: Blitzscaling is prioritizing speed over efficiency in the development of a company even in the face of uncertainty. The concept he calls “blitzscaling” provides a set of techniques that allow entrepreneurs to grow their businesses quickly, while outmaneuvering competitors.įORTUNE: What is blitzscaling & who does it apply to? In a new book, Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies, Hoffman shares his secrets for startups that want to achieve global dominance.

For years, Hoffman, who has been referred to as “the startup whisperer of Silicon Valley,” has been advising founders to take risks that prioritize speed over correctness and efficiency.

Blitzscaling by reid hoffman