Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies

by Reid Hoffman

Rather than simply imitate specific features, the best blitzscalers study the different types of network effects and design them into their business models.

First, the Internet has driven the cost of discovery for products and services lower than ever. Unlike in the past, when companies needed to offer goods in retail stores or broadcast advertising in order to be visible to customers, today buyers can find whatever they’re looking for on Amazon or other online marketplaces like Alibaba, in app stores, or, when all else fails, by Googling. Because products and services that are already popular will almost always come up first in search results, companies with a competitive advantage can quickly grow to the point where the increasing returns of network effects produce a winner-take-most or winner-take-all market. This also explains why the growth factor of distribution is as or more important to company success as the product itself—without distribution, it is difficult to reach the tipping point.

Rather than staying open during the standard American business hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Xiaomi operates on a “996” model—get in at 9 a.m., leave the office at 9 p.m., and work six days a week.

We believe that the future can and should be better than the past, and that it’s worth tolerating the discomfort we feel when blitzscaling to get to the future as quickly as we can.