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The Curve Ahead: Discovering the Path to Unlimited Growth PDF

214 Pages·2014·1.16 MB·English
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ADVANCE ACCLAIM FOR THE CURVE AHEAD “The Curve Ahead is a unique book that focuses on the growth challenges of mid-sized companies. Dave Power draws on a lifetime of experiences to show growth company lead- ers how to sustain growth over time by building innovation into the rhythm of business operations.” —Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google “The only thing that matters in business is growth and any company that stops growing is dead—particularly if you are a small or mid-size company. Dave has done an excellent job of explaining how and what others have done to sustain growth for the long term. For those who don’t want to read a dozen books on growing their business, The Curve Ahead is a great, easy to read primer on thinking about how to grow a business.” —Omar Hussain, President and CEO of Imprivata, Inc. “The Curve Ahead should be a guidance system for all entrepreneurs who have seen early success but must now scale their company to fulfill their original dreams. Dave has worked with several of my portfolio companies and I have seen how his approach can produce powerful, measurable, and lasting results.” —Larry Bohn, Managing Director of General Catalyst Partners “This book offers great practical guidance and case studies to the CEO who set out to build a fast growth company and discovers that the engine that fueled early stage rocket ship growth is slowing down. A must-read for discovering how to power up the innovation that launched the company so that a company can discover its next curve for growth.” —Janet Kraus, CEO of Peach Underneath, and Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School “If you want your business to grow and stay relevant, the first step is to Just Listen to your customers. This is the timeless message of The Curve Ahead, a unique book about innova- tion and growth strategy for mid-size companies.” —Mark Goulston, bestselling author of Just Listen “The Curve Ahead brings into sharp focus the innovation process we practice every day at Continuum; combining analytical rigor of business logic and design thinking to uncover people-centric opportunities and then translating such insights into compelling new prod- uct and service experiences. Power clearly illustrates a proven process that, by leveraging the individual skill sets and creative sensibilities of interdisciplinary teams to learn what really matters to people, and then conceptualizing, prototyping, testing and refining new and ever more compelling product and service innovations, leaders can reinvigorate and ultimately revolutionize any business or organization by improving the quality of life of the people they serve.” —Gianfranco Zaccai, President and Chief Design Officer of Continuum LLC “The Curve Ahead lays out a powerful framework for creating sustainable growth . . . [Dave] Power draws on a 25-year career as an executive, investor and advisor to growth businesses to provide a thoughtful and compelling roadmap for growth company manag- ers confronting the challenge of driving new growth opportunities!” —John G. Hayes, Great Hill Partners “The journey from success to sustainable success does indeed require a complete rethink of your business and unlike your past, new products and services will not get you there alone. You must listen to your customers and follow them into new market spaces. Doing this well allows you to bridge together a series of S-curves that can carry you for decades. The Curve Ahead is a must read for those trying to get unstuck so you can reach the next level.” —Hunt Lambert, Dean of Harvard Division of Continuing Education and University Extension “For Entrepreneurs: read The Curve Ahead to make sure your growth strategy outlives your current business model.” —David Skok, General Partner of Matrix Partners “While plenty of business books focus on the entrepreneurial start or the big exit, The Curve Ahead examines what is possibly the hardest challenge executives face: sustainable growth. Power offers powerful and pragmatic advice on how to integrate innovation into the lifeblood of a business.” —Meg O’Leary, Cofounder of Inkhouse “Every successful company will, at some point, come face-to-face with the opportunities, challenges and dynamics of the S-Curve. The Curve Ahead has been instrumental in help- ing Ping Identity understand and improve our innovation strategy for growth.” —Andre Durand, CEO of Ping Identity “The Curve Ahead exposes one of the weaknesses we often see in mid-market growth companies worldwide: No systematic process to create new offers (products, services, or business model innovation) to fuel growth 3 to 5 years into the company’s future. Dave draws on his experience as a CEO and Venture Capitalist and astuteness as a Marketing professional to guide leaders in creating an innovation rhythm in their companies.” —Keith Cupp, President of Gazelles International Coaching Association “The Curve Ahead is a handbook for Massachusetts entrepreneurs who want to build suc- cessful businesses and fuel our innovation economy.” —Tom Hopcroft, President of Mass Technology Leadership Council C U R V E THE A H E A D C U R V E THE A H E A D DISCOVERING THE PATH TO UNLIMITED GROWTH D AV E P O W E R the curve ahead Copyright © Dave Power, 2014 All rights reserved. First published in 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the U.S.—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-137-27922-4 ISBN 978-1-137-46435-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9781137464354 The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows: Power, Dave. The curve ahead : discovering the path to unlimited growth / Dave Power. pages cm 1. Small business—Growth. 2. Small business—Management. 3. Leadership. I. Title. HD62.7.P694 2014 658.4’06—dc23 2013048865 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Letra Libre, Inc. First edition: July 2014 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To Helene, David, Colin, John, Cecily, and Patrice C O N T E N T S Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 1 Why Growth Companies Stop Growing 11 2 How Far Can You Stretch? 25 3 Get More Coverage 43 4 Find the Next S-Curve 59 5 What’s Your Innovation Process? 77 6 Customer Experience Is the New IP 93 7 Solve Problems Like a Designer 111 8 Feedback Is a Gift 127 9 New Ways to Make Money 141 10 Air Cover 157 11 Innovation Is Not a Fire Drill 173 12 Just the Beginning 185 Notes 195 Selected Bibliography 205 Index 207 A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S This book draws on a lifetime of experiences with growth companies, as an executive, investor, and advisor. I want to thank the many CEOs I’ve worked with, whose boards I’ve sat on, and whose teams I’ve led through countless dis- cussions on strategy, alignment, and execution. Among these are Ed Boyajian, Albert Busch, Alex Campbell, Paul Chisholm, Giovanni Colella, Tom Cook, Art Coviello, Dekkers Davidson, Andre Durand, Asad Durrani, Tom Ferry, Mitch Harper, John Hearne, Omar Hussain, Dave Laurello, Doug Levin, Ed- die Machaalani, Ken Manning, Scott McNealy, David Patrick, Jack Philbin, Markus Rex, Kyle Rolfing, Eric Schmidt, Mike Stankey, Chuck Stuckey, and Tim Yeaton. I also want to thank several investors and fellow board members who gave me a different perspective on growth company challenges, includ- ing Geraldine Alias, Raj Atluru, Larry Bohn, Aneel Bhusri, Simon Clark, Ted Dintersmith, Vinod Khosla, Lisa Lambert, Ray Lane, and David Orfao. Many colleagues made valuable contributions to an early draft of the manuscript, including Joe Abely, Larry Bohn, Ed Gaudet, Meg O’Leary, Beth Monaghan, Dennis Wiggins, and my colleagues at Gazelles International: Keith Cupp, Hazel Jackson, Cheryl Beth Kuchler, Michelle LaVallee, Juan Carlos López, Cléo Maheux, Daniel Marcos, and Les Rubenovitch. Mark Goulston lent his unique perspective on how to listen to customers. Jane Healey provided valuable research support. Dave Kerpen and Kirsten Sand- berg were early champions of the original book concept. A number of mentors shaped my thinking about growth strategy includ- ing Carl Sloane, the late Peter Temple, Paul Buddenhagen, Paul Fulchino, xii THE CURVE AHEAD Mike Lovdal, Frank Mensor, and Chris Meyer of Temple, Barker & Sloane; and Joe Lassiter of the Harvard Business School. Michael Ray and Rochelle Myers introduced me to Creativity in Business in the pilot of their Stanford Business School course. Stan Davis educated me on the S-Curve and a dif- ferent way to think about the future. Margaret Andrews invited me to create executive programs on growth strategy, innovation, and design thinking for the Harvard Extension School. This book is in some ways a mash-up of some of the most practical concepts behind successful growth strategy. These concepts have survived the hard metal of the market and become valuable tools in my consulting and executive education. My objective in The Curve Ahead was to give operating executives some context—when in the life of a real growth company do you use each of these tools, and how do you put them to work? In borrowing many of these tools, I’ve stood on the shoulders of growth strategy giants including Steve Blank, Clay Christenson, Geoffrey Moore, Verne Harnish, Dave and Tom Kelley, Alexander Osterwalder, Eric Ries, and Ted Levitt. A special thanks to Celeste Fine of Sterling Lord Literistic and Laurie Harting of Palgrave Macmillan, who immediately embraced the proposal for this book and patiently guided a new author through the publishing process.

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Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.