IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/bushor/v63y2020i1p109-119.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Blitzscaling: The good, the bad, and the ugly

Author

Listed:
  • Kuratko, Donald F.
  • Holt, Harrison L.
  • Neubert, Emily

Abstract

Today’s disruptive innovations are driving the creation of numerous billion-dollar startups. Venture capitalists focus on these potentially disruptive technology startups and fund them furiously, advancing their speed of growth. The idea is to scale fast and seek huge returns for investors. Terms that define this type of aggressive scaling have recently developed in Silicon Valley. Unicorn is defined as a venture with a value of $1 billion, while a decacorn describes startups with a value of $10 billion. Another recent term is blitzscaling: funding a venture for extremely fast growth and prioritizing speed over efficiency in an environment of uncertainty. While blitzscaling is being used heavily by investors in Silicon Valley, we look at exactly what comprises this new phenomenon and how it is used in practice. We examine the concept, its stages, and its prevalence before reviewing the different examples of how the strategy has been implemented for success (the good), cases of its failure in practice (the bad), and the extreme cases of ethical compromise by ventures (the ugly). From these cases, we draw specific lessons that, if understood and appropriately addressed, would help new ventures effectively implement the strategy.

Suggested Citation

  • Kuratko, Donald F. & Holt, Harrison L. & Neubert, Emily, 2020. "Blitzscaling: The good, the bad, and the ugly," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 109-119.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:63:y:2020:i:1:p:109-119
    DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2019.10.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681319301478
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.bushor.2019.10.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Regan M. Stevenson & Donald F. Kuratko & Jared Eutsler, 2019. "Unleashing main street entrepreneurship: Crowdfunding, venture capital, and the democratization of new venture investments," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 52(2), pages 375-393, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Maksim Belitski & Christina Guenther & Alexander S. Kritikos & Roy Thurik, 2022. "Economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on entrepreneurship and small businesses," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 593-609, February.
    2. Shankar, Raj K. & Clausen, Tommy H., 2020. "Scale quickly or fail fast: An inductive study of acceleration," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    3. Khanindra Ch. Das, 2023. "What Affects Startup Acquisition in Emerging Economy? Evidence from India," Journal of Emerging Market Finance, Institute for Financial Management and Research, vol. 22(2), pages 111-134, June.
    4. Kuckertz, Andreas & Scheu, Maximilian & Davidsson, Per, 2023. "Chasing mythical creatures – A (not-so-sympathetic) critique of entrepreneurship's obsession with unicorn startups," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 19(C).
    5. Iurkov, Viacheslav & Koval, Mariia & Zakaryan, Arusyak, 2023. "The role of network community characteristics for firms' rapid business scaling," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    6. Kuratko, Donald F. & Neubert, Emily & Marvel, Matthew R., 2021. "Insights on the mentorship and coachability of entrepreneurs," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 199-209.
    7. Wood, Matthew S. & Scheaf, David J. & Dwyer, Sean M., 2022. "Fake it ‘til you make it: Hazards of a cultural norm in entrepreneurship," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 65(5), pages 681-696.
    8. Kuratko, Donald F. & Devin Burnell, & Stevenson, Regan & Neubert, Emily & Fisher, Greg, 2023. "Enacting entrepreneurial hustle," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 237-249.
    9. Audretsch, David B. & Belitski, Maksim & Theodoraki, Christina, 2024. "Micro and macro factors of firm scaling," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).
    10. Wimelius, Henrik & Sandberg, Johan & Olsson, Markus & Gunhaga, Martin, 2023. "Navigating the volatile world of digital entrepreneurship," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 66(6), pages 789-803.
    11. Aaron J. Staples & Thomas P. Krumel, 2023. "The Paycheck Protection Program and small business performance: Evidence from craft breweries," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(3), pages 931-956, October.
    12. David B. Audretsch & Maksim Belitski & Rosa Caiazza & Erik E. Lehmann, 2020. "Knowledge management and entrepreneurship," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 373-385, June.
    13. Donald F. Kuratko & David B. Audretsch, 2022. "The future of entrepreneurship: the few or the many?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 59(1), pages 269-278, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gloria Leonor Ortiz Morales & Juan Carlos Ramos Aguilar & Katherin Yineth Lozada Morales, 2022. "Culture as an obstacle for entrepreneurship," Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 1-14, December.
    2. Peter Konhäusner, 2021. "Crowdsourcing in Sustainable Retail—A Theoretical Framework of Success Criteria," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-21, February.
    3. Regan Stevenson & Sean R. McMahon & Chaim Letwin & Michael P. Ciuchta, 2022. "Entrepreneur fund-seeking: toward a theory of funding fit in the era of equity crowdfunding," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(4), pages 2061-2086, April.
    4. Jared Allen & Regan Stevenson & Tang Wang, 2021. "Creative and resourceful: How human, social, and psychological resources affect creative workers’ ability to rebound after failure," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 705-719, August.
    5. Danielle Logue & Matthew Grimes, 2022. "Platforms for the people: Enabling civic crowdfunding through the cultivation of institutional infrastructure," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(3), pages 663-693, March.
    6. Tobias Bürger & Simon Kleinert, 2021. "Crowdfunding cultural and commercial entrepreneurs: an empirical study on motivation in distinct backer communities," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 667-683, August.
    7. Laura Grassi & Simone Fantaccini, 2022. "An overview of Fintech applications to solve the puzzle of health care funding: state-of-the-art in medical crowdfunding," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-27, December.
    8. Caleb Gallemore & Kristian Roed Nielsen & Kristjan Jespersen, 2019. "The uneven geography of crowdfunding success: Spatial capital on Indiegogo," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(6), pages 1389-1406, September.
    9. Guarana, Cristiano L. & Stevenson, Regan M. & Jeffrey Gish, J. & Ryu, Ji Woon & Crawley, Rohan, 2022. "Owls, larks, or investment sharks? The role of circadian process in early-stage investment decisions," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 37(1).
    10. Zhou, Lu Jolly & Zhang, Xinyu & Sha, Yezhou, 2021. "The role of angel investment for technology-based SMEs: Evidence from China," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    11. Mohd Nor Hakimin Bin Yusoff & Fakhrul Anwar Zainol & Mohammad Ismail & Razman Hafifi Redzuan & Rooshihan Merican Abdul Rahim Merican & Muhammad Ashlyzan Razik & Asyraf Afthanorhan, 2021. "The Role of Government Financial Support Programmes, Risk-Taking Propensity, and Self-Confidence on Propensity in Business Ventures," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-16, January.
    12. Weiss, Tim & Perkmann, Markus & Phillips, Nelson, 2021. "Scaling Technology Ventures in Africa: New Opportunities for Research," OSF Preprints z6rjg, Center for Open Science.
    13. Donald F. Kuratko & David B. Audretsch, 2022. "The future of entrepreneurship: the few or the many?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 59(1), pages 269-278, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:bushor:v:63:y:2020:i:1:p:109-119. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.