BLITZSCALING

For most of the world, "Silicon Valley" and "startup" might as well be synonymous. Yet explaining Silicon Valley's success at producing a disproportionate number of iconic companies by saying that the region's entrepreneurs are good at starting companies is deceptively incomplete.

Simply starting a company is necessary but insufficient for creating massive value. To reap the full benefits, a region has to allow those startups to grow up into "scaleups." Silicon Valley accounts for only a small portion of the world's startups, and yet 46 percent of the world's most dominant technology companies come from Silicon Valley.

What truly sets Silicon Valley apart in its ability to support the growth of scaleups is not its fruitful research labs, or its supply of smart entrepreneurs and savvy venture capitalists (though technological innovation and human and financial capital are indeed necessary). It's the specific techniques those entrepreneurs and investors have learned to build dominant companies from those key ingredients. These techniques, while historically easiest to apply in Silicon Valley, are universal, and can work in any geography, and for any industry. The core secret is Blitzscaling: scaling up at such relentless and dizzying speed that knocks the competition right out of the water.

Inspired by their popular class of the same name at Stanford Business School, Hoffman and Yeh offer companies and entrepreneurs a framework for Blitzscaling their way to massive value. Readers will learn how to design business models for igniting lightning-fast growth, strategies for hiring and managing at each stage at the company's life cycle, and how to weather the challenges that arise from the breakneck growth of their organization.