Big is the New Big

It takes a lot more work to build a small company than it takes to build a big company.

Does not make sense on first glance but this is completely true. Who works harder? The CEO of a Fortune 500 company or the local dry cleaner? Keep in mind, working harder is not the same as having more responsibility.

Clearly the Fortune 500 CEO has more responsibility. He is charged with protecting and growing the value of the company's stock on behalf of shareholders (possibly numbering in the thousands). He also leads a workforce of thousands of employees. Thousands of customers depend on his company delivering.

But does he work harder than the dry cleaner? Not likely. The dry cleaner can barely afford to hire any full time employees. He has to be the budget guy, the cleaning guy, the folding guy, the cash register guy, all at the same time. I use an extreme and almost ridiculous example but you can intuitively apply this to slightly larger companies that have similar scaling problems.

The Fortune 500 CEO can delegate to a staff of professionals and focus on the big picture strategy stuff. He has the advantages of scale that comes naturally to building and running a large business.

How do you start to build a big business? What should you look for or do?

1. Choose a large market.

2. Choose a market with lots of potential competition and partnerships

3. Build Platforms - not applications based on platforms

4. Surround yourself with smart people who want to grow

Comments

[Joseph Sherman]

Great point. Could you expand on " Build Platforms - not applications based on platforms" Thank you,
Joseph