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The Myth of the High Growth Software Company

Gretchen Gavett

How many software companies really make it big, at least in terms of revenue?

McKinsey analyzed more than 3,000 software and online-services firms from a

22-year period, finding that fewer than a third reached $100 million in revenue

growth. Only a handful of companies reached the elusive $4 billion mark.

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This data, combined with interviews with executives at 70 companies, led

researchers to three main findings: Growth trumps all, including margin and

cost structure; sustaining growth is really hard, even among companies with

early momentum; and that (don t fret!) there is a recipe for growth that

involves four key principles. They are:

Growth happens in three acts.

The first must contain five steps: Picking the right market; defining a

monitization model that makes room for scaling; focusing on rapid innovation;

being stealthy and maintaining a low profile while developing new products; and

creating the right incentives for senior leadership.

Succeeding in the second act requires a strategy that falls into one of three

buckets: having a robust model you can expand upon easily as is (this is a

rarity); expanding successfully into an adjacency; or transforming your product

into a platform.

Companies that have figured out how to master the transition from one act to

the next are the most successful.

Source: Grow Fast or Die Slow

Gretchen Gavett is an associate editor at the Harvard Business Review. Follow

her on Twitter @gretchenmarg.