Triggers for Exponential Growth

Last week we decided to have a look at Triggers for Exponential Growth at the Churchill Club.  The event was based on my question “Are there identifiable triggers that send a business absolutely mental?”  Although not truly meeting the definition of “exponential”, we did pick 3 companies that had achieved massive growth and convinced their leaders to talk about what was going on.

I thought it was worthwhile to share the main points.

The companies were:
Red Bubble
An online art store that launched just over 12 months ago and now has 38,000  members and over 600,000 pieces of art online.

REA Group
7 years ago the operators of Realestate.com.au had revenue of $4M with losses of $6M.  Today they have revenue of  $110M and profits of $15M

Roo Online Video Network
From 3 men in a garage in Caulfield in 2001, this online video company now headquartered in New York and listed on the NASDAQ,  streams its content to 60+ countries via 10,000 servers.

According to my notes, the main points from each of our speakers on the triggers for them to achieve exponential growth were:

Peter Styles -  CEO, Red Bubble
1.    You need to bring on board people whom are passionate about what you do, as achieving exponential growth isn’t a 9 to 5 job.

2.    Delivering a “Remarkable Experience” in every area of the company will make the growth sustainable.

Simon Baker – CEO, RealEstate.com.au
1.    Focus.  Get rid of distracting/unprofitable business lines and concentrate energy on your strategy.

2.    Hire well.  And be prepared to stand people aside if you need to.

3.    Have an infrastructure that will support your growth.

Tristan Place – Vice President of Sales/Strategic Partnerships for ROO Online Video Network
1.    Make sure you have the right people in place.

2.    Stay Disciplined.  When growing there are millions of potential distractions.

Each speaker also mentioned that in the early days each company had the right to experiment with markets, business models and products.  However the mistakes were quickly (or sometimes slowly) identified and the business tightened up into growth machine that now exists.

Once again there was no “secret to success” or magic button that was pressed.  Massive growth came down to focus on strategy and hiring the right people.

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