The Resource Guide is created by Grace Liu and Gabriella Velazquez
Updated on Janurary 8, 2022
Scaling a business means setting the stage to enable and support growth in your company. It requires planning, funding, and the right processes. This Guide introduces resources for you to learn now to scale up and accelerate business growth.
The courses selected can be audited for free and you can find the audit instructions for Coursera and Edx courses.
Structure: Building the Frame for Business Growth (Michigan State University)
Just like when building a house the foundation for your business provides the framework for success. A business built on weak structure will struggle to succeed. We'll address some of the most pressing issues that you as a business owner must face while constructing the proper framework for your business.
Entrepreneurship: Growth Strategies (Wharton Online)
Start-ups are designed to grow quickly, but successful start-ups grow smart. This course is designed to provide you with an understanding of the essential elements of successful scaling, including an overview of demand generation, customer acquisition, adoption, diffusion and forecasting demand.
Scaling Your Company (Kauffman Foundation)
In this series, Rory O’Driscoll and Kate Mitchell, co-founders and partners at Scale Venture Partners, will detail the mindset needed to scale your company. Along with some of their associates, they will explain how the scaling phase differs from the startup phase, what kind of metrics you’ll need as you accelerate and what kind of team you’ll need alongside you for the journey ahead.
Scaling Product and Processes (IE Business School)
Fine-tune your product and processes before you begin to scale up your startup! Take the guesswork out of product-market fit and sales and marketing for your scaleup with this course and discover what sets your product apart and how to capitalize on what your company has to offer as you scale up your startup.
Building Culture in a Scale Up (IE Business School)
Company culture changes in the shift from startup to scaleup – and as the company moves and incorporates different people profiles and roles, culture becomes increasingly vital in ensuring that everyone understands the company's mission, values, strategy, and objectives.
Hayagreeva Rao Keynote Talk: Scaling Up Excellence
Stanford University Professor Hayagreeva "Huggy" Rao speaks on what it takes to build and uncover pockets of exemplary performance, and spread those splendid deeds at an organization. As an organization grows bigger and older - rather than slipping toward mediocrity or worse
Where to Play: Finding your New Growth Opportunities in a More Systematic Manner (Global Entrepreneurship Exchange)
In this webinar, Marc Gruber, Ph.D., College of Management of Technology at EPFL, Switzerland introduces the Market Opportunity Navigator - which is the 4th tool in the lean startup toolset and featured in his book (with Sharon Tal) entitled "Where to Play". Using plenty of examples Marc will show how this easy-to-use tool can help entrepreneurs and innovators to figure out how to identify great market opportunities, discover additional ones, and create a company that is more flexible in case it has to pivot to another market domain.
Advice From the High Growth Handbook, a Guide to Scaling Startups (Chicago Booth Review)
Elad Gil is an entrepreneur, operator, and investor. He co-founded Color Genomics and Mixer Labs. Worked at Google and Twitter. And has invested in companies including Airbnb, Coinbase, and Stripe. He is the author of the High Growth Handbook.
How can startups scale up? (Chicago Booth)
On this episode of The Big Question, Chicago Booth’s Michael D. Alter, Jellyvision CEO Amanda Lannert, and Fieldglass founder and former CEO Jai Shekhawat discuss the challenges small businesses need to overcome to grow into large companies.
Building Company Culture: From StartUp to Scale Up (Stanford Online)
In this webinar, Professor Huggy Rao will interview John Lilly, angel investor, board member, and advisor for technology companies on the challenges and opportunities in scaling company culture.
Ramping Your Brand: How to Ride the Killer CPG Growth Curve with Dr. James Richardson
Dr. Richardson Richardson is the Owner of Premium Growth Solutions, he's helped more than 75 CPG brands with strategic planning and growth, including Coca-Cola Venturing and Emerging Brands, The Hershey Company, General Mills, Kraft Foods, Frito-Lay, Mother Kombucha, and many more.
Grow Your Enterprise SaaS Startup
CxO interview with Jason Lemkin, Managing Director of Storm Ventures, one of the world's most popular and respected startup advisors on SaaS topics. His site SaaStr.com with a particular focus on accelerating revenue and early-stage SaaS sales and marketing.
How to scale your business Playlist (Chicago Booth Review)
Entrepreneurs who hope to scale their start-ups need to also be adept learners, says Chicago Booth’s Ram Shivakumar. That means drawing lessons from experience, but also developing an experimental culture that accepts the possibility of failure. A company that learns quickly and effectively can better distinguish good opportunities from poor ones, and establish a lasting competitive advantage in its market.
A series of founder interviews on starting and scaling their startups (Y Combinator)
Start up & scale up: A conversation with Box CEO Aaron Levie (McKinsey and Company)
In this episode of the McKinsey Podcast, Box CEO Aaron Levie speaks with McKinsey’s Simon London about how his team was able to start up and scale up the cloud-storage company, driving business growth while focusing on continuous innovation, and how artificial intelligence (AI) will factor into the company’s future.
Heads of Growth for Airbnb and Uber Discuss Scaling Growth
Gustaf Alstromer, YC's newest Partner (formerly product lead for Growth at Airbnb) joined a panel with Ed Baker, (former Head of Growth at Uber), to share tips on growth experiments and team dynamics at a scaling company.
Business Strategy, Going from Startup to Scaleup
Listen to HubSpot's Co-Founder and CEO, Brian Halligan, as he talks about HubSpot's history going from its first few dozen employees to over a thousand, and how to find and prevent "potholes" that derail growth.
Advice on Organizing and Running Growth Teams
Features talks from Dan Hockenmaier, the founder of the growth strategy firm Basis One.
Advice from a Unicorn: Startup, Scale Up
Moving from startup to unicorn can be a difficult path to travel. Hear stories from the trenches and learn what it's like to scale through all levels of growth at one of B.C.'s fastest growing tech companies! Featuring speakers Keith Ippel, CEO & Co-founder, Spring Activator and Richard Hungerford, VP, Corporate Development, Hootsuite Inc.
Scaling Startup Operations: Simple but not Easy
Kat Carter, Director of Operations, Squire a Barber Shop scheduling app with over 2000 partners world-wide will discuss the planning, implementing, and adaptation required to successfully scale operations at a Venture-backed startup.
Click the link to find a Worldcat book record; enter a zipcode to check which library nearby has the book you can borrow. When the record is not available, a link to Amazon is provided.
Blumberg, Matt. Startup Ceo: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Business. 2020. Print.
Blumberg, Matt, and Peter M. Birkeland. Startup Cxo: A Field Guide to Scaling Up Your Company's Critical Functions and Teams. 2021. Print.
Gil, Elad. High Growth Handbook: Scaling Startup from 10 to 10,000 People. , 2018. Print.
Bova, Tiffani D. Growth Iq: Get Smarter About the Choices That Will Make or Break Your Business. Penguin Group USA, 2018. Print.
Busulwa, Richard, Naomi Birdthistle, and Steve Dunn. Startup Accelerators: A Field Guide. 2020. Print.
Harnish, Verne. Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It - and Why the Rest Don't. Ashburn, Virginia: Gazelles, 2014. Print.
Maurya, Ash. Scaling Lean: Mastering the Key Metrics for Startup Growth. 2016. Print.
Zook, Chris, and James Allen. The Founder's Mentality: How to Overcome the Predictable Crises of Growth. Perseus Distribution Services, 2016. Print.
Read More Books on This Topic
Hayagreeva Rao is Co-Director, Stanford Innovation and Entrepreneurship Certificate. Professor Rao studies collective action within organizations and in markets. His research and by implication, his teaching, revolves around scaling up mobilization, innovation, and talent in organizations.
SCORE mentors offer consultation via video, email, phone, or in-person.