Stages of Growth Models

AbstractStages of growth models are important for understanding scale-ups. One of the differences between scale-ups and HGFs is that research on HGFs does not take growth stages into account, as long as growth is fast enough. This chapter presents Steve Blank’s 4-stage model of firm growth, where scaling up is stage 3. Hence, scaling-up does not occur directly at birth, among the youngest firms, but preparation is needed before scaling up. Differences between scaling up and so-called blitz-scaling are also discussed.