Not true for marketing-oriented companies that grew huge by having a really good salesforce and managing to become the go-to name in slow, bureaucratic markets such as governments.
The Only Way to Grow Huge
11–20 of 110 posts
Re: The Only Way to Grow Huge
#12> All companies that grow really big do so in only one way: people recommend the product or service to other people. This is a bad opening premise. Time Warner and Comcast are huge and they don't seem like word of mouth companies to me. Boeing is pretty huge and they don't sell anything directly to ordinary consumers. I would never run around marketing Pfizer products to my friends. Take a scan down the Fortune 500 a…
He explicitly excludes monopolies, like TW and Comcast.
Re: The Only Way to Grow Huge
#13> All companies that grow really big do so in only one way: people recommend the product or service to other people. This is a bad opening premise. Time Warner and Comcast are huge and they don't seem like word of mouth companies to me. Boeing is pretty huge and they don't sell anything directly to ordinary consumers. I would never run around marketing Pfizer products to my friends. Take a scan down the Fortune 500 a…
Yes, this article seems to live within the silicon valley echo chamber.
Re: The Only Way to Grow Huge
#14> All companies that grow really big do so in only one way: people recommend the product or service to other people. This is a bad opening premise. Time Warner and Comcast are huge and they don't seem like word of mouth companies to me. Boeing is pretty huge and they don't sell anything directly to ordinary consumers. I would never run around marketing Pfizer products to my friends. Take a scan down the Fortune 500 a…
On the contrary, it is absolutely correct. You forget these huge companies were once small upstarts. As upstarts, their growth was propelled by buyers recommending the product to other buyers. (You can substitute users for buyers here if it is an app). So his point is valid.
If you go back to the early days of Oracle for example, they were providing a highly flexible database and would do it on (mostly) any computer platform you had. The competition was databases that were glorified flat files on mainframes, and IBM dominated that market. It took a few to take the plunge, but the others followed.
Overall his point is very valid.
Re: The Only Way to Grow Huge
#15Good marketing and advertising can cover up a bad product. A prime example is GoDaddy.
When their product is not growing like it should, Silicon Valley startups always hire more engineers to add more features. Oftentimes, the product is good enough they just need put in more marketing efforts.
It almost feels like marketers and business dev people are second rate employees compare to engineers when their job is could be more important after the initial launch.
Re: The Only Way to Grow Huge
#16> All companies that grow really big do so in only one way: people recommend the product or service to other people. This is a bad opening premise. Time Warner and Comcast are huge and they don't seem like word of mouth companies to me. Boeing is pretty huge and they don't sell anything directly to ordinary consumers. I would never run around marketing Pfizer products to my friends. Take a scan down the Fortune 500 a…
He explicitly excludes monopolies, like TW and Comcast.
This comment needs to be stressed. Altman's article simply doesn't make it clear enough that he's excluding companies such as Time Warner.
Military contractors are a whole other issue, of course.
Re: The Only Way to Grow Huge
#17> All companies that grow really big do so in only one way: people recommend the product or service to other people. This is a bad opening premise. Time Warner and Comcast are huge and they don't seem like word of mouth companies to me. Boeing is pretty huge and they don't sell anything directly to ordinary consumers. I would never run around marketing Pfizer products to my friends. Take a scan down the Fortune 500 a…
On the contrary, it is absolutely correct. You forget these huge companies were once small upstarts. As upstarts, their growth was propelled by buyers recommending the product to other buyers. (You can substitute users for buyers here if it is an app). So his point is valid. If you go back to the early days of Oracle for example, they were providing a highly flexible database and would do it on (mostly) any computer…
Agreed. All the companies @pak mentioned have matured past the rapid growth stage.
Re: The Only Way to Grow Huge
#18> All companies that grow really big do so in only one way: people recommend the product or service to other people. This is a bad opening premise. Time Warner and Comcast are huge and they don't seem like word of mouth companies to me. Boeing is pretty huge and they don't sell anything directly to ordinary consumers. I would never run around marketing Pfizer products to my friends. Take a scan down the Fortune 500 a…
Another broken premise is his implication that in order to be "a great company", a company needs to be a "really big" company.
Re: The Only Way to Grow Huge
#19> All companies that grow really big do so in only one way: people recommend the product or service to other people. This is a bad opening premise. Time Warner and Comcast are huge and they don't seem like word of mouth companies to me. Boeing is pretty huge and they don't sell anything directly to ordinary consumers. I would never run around marketing Pfizer products to my friends. Take a scan down the Fortune 500 a…
On the contrary, it is absolutely correct. You forget these huge companies were once small upstarts. As upstarts, their growth was propelled by buyers recommending the product to other buyers. (You can substitute users for buyers here if it is an app). So his point is valid. If you go back to the early days of Oracle for example, they were providing a highly flexible database and would do it on (mostly) any computer…
> You forget these huge companies were once small upstarts. As upstarts, their growth was propelled by buyers recommending the product to other buyers. (You can substitute users for buyers here if it is an app). So his point is valid.
That's pretty forced.
There are plenty of ways for companies to grow, and word-of-mouth is just one of them. For example, a company can grow by getting a military contract, thus being infused with cash and lots of credibility. You don't get a government contract because Sally told Jim at the DoD about how great you are.
Edit: I noticed many of the comments that share my sentiment are being downvoted. Why?
Re: The Only Way to Grow Huge
#20> All companies that grow really big do so in only one way: people recommend the product or service to other people. This is a bad opening premise. Time Warner and Comcast are huge and they don't seem like word of mouth companies to me. Boeing is pretty huge and they don't sell anything directly to ordinary consumers. I would never run around marketing Pfizer products to my friends. Take a scan down the Fortune 500 a…
He explicitly excludes monopolies, like TW and Comcast.
You cannot become a monopoly without having a better product at one point, unless you are friends with a dictator.