The development of valuable new businesses is the toughest challenge in business – far more difficult than sustaining an existing enterprise. Existing businesses benefit from inertia: customers won’t switch unless they are given a good reason, few employees leave voluntarily unless their compensation falls significantly below market rates, and returns on sunk investment may persist at substandard levels as long as a company can’t generate more cash by selling the assets. In contrast, rapid growth requires a dramatically superior value proposition that gives customers of other companies a reason to switch, sufficiently attractive compensation to attract large numbers of new employees, and returns on capital that draw new investors. Our own research shows that rapid growth typically requires a company to be about 20 percent better than would be required to sustain the business.
