The principles necessary to start up and scale up have not changed in over 100 years.
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Dave Rogenmoser launched the startup Jasper, known for its AI-powered copywriting tool, with two business partners in 36 hours. Since then, in 2021, the Austin, Texas-based company has raised $125 million in venture funding. Jasper logged nearly $143 million in annual revenue, compared to $120 million in 2023, despite intense competition from ChatGPT and other players in AI.
What positioned Jasper for success was its early decision to put the right systems in place as it started to scale. When Jasper’s founding team got together, they were tired of the hassles of growing the traditional way. So they deployed the Scaling Up methodology detailed in my book Start to Scale, deciding to try it for just three months and then keep using it.
The Scaling Up platform is focused on the four Decisions every company must get right: People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash. The biggest gains from using it, Rogenmoser says, are more clarity, better communication and alignment, greater freedom, and less stress.
Jasper, now led by former Dropbox president Timothy Young, offers an AI product—and its leaders are well aware of the need to keep up with technological change. Countless other founders less immersed in technology are operating in industries seeing similar rapid evolution, with the global AI market expected to grow from $243.7 billion in 2025 to $826.7 billion by 2030, according to market researcher Statista.
Many of these leaders want to position their companies to stay ahead of the curve and are looking for new ways to do that. The good news is that the principles necessary to start up and scale up have not changed in over 100 years. A handful of underlying fundamentals drive everything important in business.
Three Disciplines Fundamental to Scaling
In working with more than 100,000 firms, we have found that using the principles in the Scaling Up platform can lead to easier scaleups with less drama. Modern business titans, from Steve Jobs to Elon Musk, have relied on a set of disciplines fundamental to scaling any organization:
- Priorities: Does the organization have three to five Top Priorities for the year and quarter (or month, if growing over 100% annually) and a clear Top 1 priority along with an appropriate theme?
- Data: Does the organization have sufficient data on a daily and weekly basis to provide insight into how it is running and what the market is demanding? Does everyone in the organization have at least one key daily or weekly metric (Moneyball stat) driving their performance? Whoever has the best intel fastest wins, as I took away from a meeting with Steve Kerr, former head of GE’s famous Crotonville executive education center.
- Rhythm: Does the organization have an effective rhythm of daily, weekly, monthly, and annual meetings to maintain alignment and drive accountability and communication?
Beyond this, does your organization have an “X Factor?” This is a chokepoint in its industry, where it has a 10x to 30x advantage over the competition.
Four Decisions Every Company Must Get Right
With these in mind, the Scaling Up platform is organized around four key decisions that will help your company overcome the barriers you face as you scale up, which tools such as our free One-Page Strategic Plan have helped thousands of companies make and keep everyone aligned and accountable around them.
1. People
In leading people, take a page from parenting: Establish a handful of rules, repeat yourself a lot, and act consistently with those rules. This is the role and power of Core Values.
If discovered and used effectively, these values guide all decisions (people and process) in the company.
2. Strategy
When setting a strategy, follow the definition from the great business strategist Gary Hamel.
You don’t have a real strategy if it doesn’t pass two tests: First, what you’re planning to do really matters to enough customers. Second, it differentiates you from your competition.
3. Execution
In driving execution, implement three key habits: Set a handful of Priorities (the fewer, the better); gather quantitative and qualitative data daily and review weekly to guide decisions; and establish an effective daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual meeting rhythm to keep everyone in the loop. Those who pulse faster scale faster.
4. Cash
When managing cash, don’t run out of it! Pay as much attention to how every decision affects cash flow as you would to revenue and profitability.
The Yin and Yang of Successful Scale-ups
Ultimately, if you want to stay ahead of AI, defining a long-term vision for 10 to 25 years and setting a handful of priorities for the next quarter are the two most important decisions a business leader can make. This yin and yang of having both a long-term “rarely changes” piece alongside a short-term “changes a lot” dynamic piece provides the delicate balance needed to drive superior performance.
Two Tests Every Strategy Must Pass to Succeed
Keep in mind the beautifully simple definition of strategy provided by Strategos, the consulting firm founded by the great business strategist Gary Hamel: You don’t have a real strategy if it doesn’t pass these two tests: what you’re planning to do really matters to your existing and potential customers; and second, it differentiates you from your competition.
You also need a clear idea of whether you can become the best at implementing this strategy and if it will or will not work.
Some firms do things that differentiate themselves, but it doesn’t really matter to a customer (high quality when the customer just wants speed). Other firms do things that the customer desires, but so does all the competition (you’ve just entered the commodity zone). Yet others might have both parts of the strategy correct from a theoretical standpoint but fail to execute.
Companies that develop a strategy that passes these two tests will not have to worry about staying ahead of change. They will be the ones setting the pace for everyone else as they start to scale.
