Four phases of a company

The way you operate and execute is going to be different depending on the company’s phase.

It’s important to understand.

The way you operate and execute is going to be different depending on the company’s phase.

Phase 1: Drunken walk.
The company start with the founder’s vision—an idea. The company aims to experiment as much as possible to prove that many people want that idea. The data is scarce and decision making is using intuition and vision-based.

Working in the drunken-walk startup? You’ll make a lot of decisions without data. Utilizing your intuition and sticking to the vision. You need a founder or owner mentality.

Phase 2: Product/market fit.
The company has proved that many people want to use their products. It's time to double down on what's working. The company focuses on adding value and differentiator from the competition.

Working in a company who have achieved product-market fit? You’ll need to add value fast. Start utilizing data to improve the product.

Phase 3: Growth.
The company has seen a healthy annual growth rate. In this stage, the core products have successfully served the core audience. The company needs to scale the product to adjacent markets or different use cases. As a result, the product can be simpler or more complex.

Working in a hypergrowth company? You’ll start dealing with bureaucracy. You'll see people who manage other people to ensure the execution continues to support the growth.

Phase 4: Scale.
The company becomes the market leader. Think Facebook, Amazon, and Google. The internal problems stack up. The company focuses on sustaining growth and serving the current customer's needs in a better way. This is where the innovator's dilemma becomes most acute: Should we look for new disruptive innovation or maintain the growth?

Working in the scale and market leader company? You’ll get a lot of “stability” in terms of career—although the layoff can happen anytime. You have a lot of resources to innovate. But require a strong leadership to break the “comfort zone”