Adora Cheung Speaks at Female Founders Conference 2015

TL;DR

Scaling a startup becomes ten times harder after achieving product-market fit. The talk covers prerequisites (product-market fit, opportunity size, timing), then three scaling areas: product (sticky/viral/paid growth, tools/automation, founder obsession with metrics), organization (obsessive recruiting, communication mechanisms, mission/core values, managing people including firing), and self (sup

Key insights

• Scaling is not automatic after product-market fit; it is far harder, with new challenges.
• Launching new geographic markets is a poor growth strategy without underlying sticky, viral, or paid growth engines.
• Viral growth (word of mouth via referral programs) is the best because it is free; paid growth can bankrupt a startup if customer lifetime value < acquisition cost.