the 3 stages of hypergrowth

HYPERGROWTHThe 3 Stages of

“Why do some companies, products, services, & ideas achieve Hypergrowth, while others only capture a small portion of a market?”

-@dcancel Drift co-founder & CEO,

Host of Seeking Wisdom

1. Edison Stage• Discovery• Invention• Is it possible?

2. Model T Stage• Mass production• Building factories• Does it scale?

3. P&G Stage• Differentiation• Brand building• Why is it better?

“That’s the question I was trying to answer when I came up with the Hypergrowth Curve.”

The Hypergrowth Curve consists of 3 stages of growth that every breakthrough company, product, service, or idea transitions through.

1. Edison Stage

The Hypergrowth Curve consists of 3 stages of growth that every breakthrough company, product, service, or idea transitions through.

1. Edison Stage 2. Model T Stage

The Hypergrowth Curve consists of 3 stages of growth that every breakthrough company, product, service, or idea transitions through.

1. Edison Stage 2. Model T Stage 3. P&G Stage

The Hypergrowth Curve consists of 3 stages of growth that every breakthrough company, product, service, or idea transitions through.

1. Edison Stage• Discovery• Invention• Is it possible?

2. Model T Stage• Mass production• Building factories• Does it scale?

3. P&G Stage• Differentiation• Brand building• Why is it better?

And in each stage, the strategy and focus completely shifts.

THE EDISON STAGESTAGE 1

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.

-Thomas Edison

“

This is the stage Edison went through when he was working on the light bulb. You’re investing all your time trying to figure out:

• Can we actually build this thing? • Is it possible to build this thing?

And this is really the stage where patents come into play, where invention comes into play. This is the first stage of a market.

Using blogging as an example, the first stage was back when there were no blogging platforms…

To create a blog post back then, you would create a static HTML page and then upload that page using FTP to a web server that you had somewhere. And that was considered a blog post.

That was the first stage.

Or using SaaS as an example, the first stage was when Salesforce came into market and started to build software as a service.

They were the first to take on-premise software and bring it into the cloud.

In that first stage, it’s all about finding early adopters, and building your tribe.

In the next stage, the tribe goes mass market.

THE MODEL T STAGESTAGE 2

Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.

-Henry Ford

“

The Model T stage was when Henry Ford took something that had previously been invented, the automobile, and figured out how to bring it to the masses.

This stage is about building factories. And it’s about operational moats that you build in your business.

Examples of these moats might include the way you price something, the way that you go to market, or how you build a product in such a way that you can easily productionize it.

In the world of blogging, this is the stage where WordPress (and others) brought CMS to the masses. It’s the stage where content marketing and SEO became popularized.

During the Model T stage, it’s relatively easy to stand out in your niche.

There’s low competition for attention — you might have 10 competitors or so, and you can easily name them.

However, in order to advance to the next stage on the Hypergrowth Curve, where you might be facing up to

100 competitors, you’ll need to change your approach.

THE P&G STAGESTAGE 3

To make good choices, you need to make sense of the complexity of your environment. 

-A.G Lafley (former P&G CEO)

“

In the third stage, the P&G Stage, we cross the chasm into a global audience.

Using email as an example, in the third stage, winners look like MailChimp.

They succeed by differentiating on brand, and the winner takes the biggest share of the market.

This is the stage we (Drift) are in now, and we call it the P&G stage because in this stage, it’s all about investing in your brand.

“It’s about selling Tide laundry detergent and getting 20 cents more for a box of Tide than for a box of All or a box of Cheer or a box of whatever laundry detergent.”

In this stage, you’re trying to create a moat around brand, and brand preference.

You’re helping a global audience answer the question, “Why do I want to buy this brand versus another?”

“This is where we, as a company, are spending a lot of energy and resources. Because we think SaaS is in its third stage right now.

“The companies that are going to stand out are the companies that are the top 1% globally for the overall category, or the companies that niche themselves all the way down to be top 1% in their micro-niche. Those are the two ways to win in this world.”

Example: Tide is top 1% in the laundry detergent category. To enter this category, you have to micro-niche yourself like Seventh Generation did by inventing the organic/green laundry detergent category and then dominating it.

FINAL THOUGHT

1. Edison Stage 2. Model T Stage 3. P&G Stage

The important thing here is whatever you’re creating, whatever you’re doing, you need to understand which stage of growth you’re in.

Because that’s going to dictate the strategy and tactics that you use.

1. Edison Stage 2. Model T Stage 3. P&G Stage

Want to learn more about how you can achieve Hypergrowth?

Come to our HYPERGROWTH conference this September!

Drift is reinventing modern marketing and sales using messaging

Visit Drift.com to learn more.