Why do some companies, products, services, and ideas achieve Hypergrowth, while others only capture a small portion of a market? That’s the question I was trying to answer when I came up with the Hypergrowth Curve. The curve consists of three stages of growth that every breakthrough company, product, service, or idea transitions through. And in each stage, the strategy and focus totally shifts. In the first stage on the Hypergrowth Curve, you’re building a product and finding your tribe. You’re seeing if the idea is even possible. In the second stage, you’ve found product/market fit and are now focused on rolling out your invention to the masses. Finally, in the third stage, you’re focused on building a global brand and dominating an entire category (or micro-niche).

1. The Three Stages
of Hypergrowth
David Cancel | Co-founder & CEO at Drift, Host of Seeking Wisdom

2. Why do some companies, products,
services, & ideas achieve
Hypergrowth, while others only
capture a small portion of a market?
That’s the question I was trying to answer when I came up with the Hypergrowth Curve.

3. The Hypergrowth Curve
Three stages every high-growth company transitions through
THE EDISON STAGE
Discovery. Invention.
Is it possible?
1998
THE MODEL T STAGE
Mass production.
Building factories
Does it scale?
2008
THE P&G STAGE
Differentiation.
Brand building
Why is it better?
TODAY

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

5. The three stages of growth
Edison Stage
Model T Stage
P&G Stage03
02
01

6. The Hypergrowth Curve
In each stage, the strategy and focus completely shifts.
THE EDISON STAGE
Discovery. Invention.
Is it possible?
1998
THE MODEL T STAGE
Mass production.
Building factories
Does it scale?
2008
THE P&G STAGE
Differentiation.
Brand building
Why is it better?
TODAY

7. The Edison
Stage

8. Genius is one percent inspiration and
ninety-nine percent perspiration.
— Thomas Edison

9. 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?

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

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

12. So how did you
post a blog?
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.

13. What about SaaS
companies?
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.

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

15. In the next stage, the
tribe goes mass market.

16. STAGE 2
The Model T
Stage

17. Coming together is a beginning,
staying together is progress,
and working together is success.
— Henry Ford

18. 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.

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

20. Examples of
these moats
might include:
● The way you price something.
● The way that you go to market
● How you build a product in a way that you
can easily productionize it.

21. 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.

22. 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.

23. STAGE 3
The P&G
Stage

24. To make good choices, you need
to make sense of the complexity of
your environment.
— A.G. Lafley, former P&G CEO

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

26. 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.

27. What about Drift?
This is the stage Drift is 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.

28. 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?”

29. This is where we, as a company, are
spending a lot of energy and resources.
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.

30. Final Thought

31. 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.

32. Want to learn more about how
you can achieve Hypergrowth?
In his book, HYPERGROWTH, serial entrepeneur and
Drift Founder & CEO David Cancel shares a modern
approach for building products and structuring teams
that makes customer communication a central priority.
Get the book that’s revolutionizing business at
drift.com/insider/learn/books-reports/hypergrowth/

33. Thank you!