One individual who needs no introduction is Adolf Hitler. Shakespeare would make an exception for him in his famous “What’s in a name?” line from Romeo and Juliet if he were still alive. He knocked off figures like Genghis Khan, Saddam Hussein, and Osama Bin Laden for a spot on the coveted list of most infamous and horrible individuals, to mention just a few of his accomplishments. He is also credited with turning the name Hitler into a byword for oppressive, autocratic, or fascist inclinations.
Hitler may be compared to evil in the same way as Sachin is to cricket, Ronaldo to football, Michael Jackson to dance, Van Gogh is to painting, Beethoven to music, Google to the internet, and the lost goes on and on but you get the idea (right?!). It’s interesting to note that the methods employed by Hitler to conquer Europe and portions of Africa during World War II and the ways that new generation startups or digital behemoths operate and develop their enterprises are conceptually similar.
The legend of World War II “Blitzkrieg” Where Blitzscaling Comes From
Germany’s promotion of the Blitzkrieg Strategy was largely responsible for its early success in WWII and its victorious juggernaut in Europe. The tenacious execution of this plan was largely responsible for Germany’s successful invasion of France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands as well as the Fall of France.
“Lightning war” is what blitzkrieg is. It follows an overpowering strike on the enemy lines as a military strategy, with speed and stealth being the attack’s most important qualities. It is a form of military combat in which all offensive forces, including tanks, armoured divisions, and infantry, advance simultaneously at the fastest possible speed, striking the enemy line one by one with crushing blows while never allowing the enemy flanks to stabilise or retain the territory.
Just picture divisions of soldiers taking the ground, tanks charging ahead, planes dropping firebombs, and artillery shooting all at once with perfect synchronisation, continuous movement, scientific superiority quelling opponent morale, and eradicating hostile soldiers all at once.
How to Conduct a Blitzkrieg Conflict
The main pillars that support effective fighting systems based on the Blitzkrieg Model are constant motion, speed, coordinated efforts, mobilisation of all the best resources, and a never-stop mentality. These are the same pillars that have emerged as a crucial differentiator for the explosive growth of new-age businesses and their unrelenting ascent to the centre of people’s modern lifestyles throughout the world.
The key component of Silicon Valley success stories is Blitzscaling
The adoption of the Blitzkrieg tactic from Environment War II by IT behemoths and its fusion with commercial plans is not an aberration but rather a realistic representation of the complex and convoluted world we live in. Blitzscaling, a book written by Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh, examines the quick route to creating extremely valuable businesses.
The corporate landscape was irrevocably altered with the arrival of the internet era. The market now bases incentives on the “winner takes all” maxim. Numerous company ideas were impractical until they reached a certain magnitude.
Before millions of users joined the network, neither LinkedIn nor Facebook nor WhatsApp could realise their full potential. Only when millions of people used Amazon, Uber, or Airbnb’s razor-thin margin aggregator models and thousands of vendors, drivers, or homeowners listed their services on these platforms did these businesses succeed. Apple is able to handle huge R&D expenses since it sells millions of devices worldwide. After company scaling and rapid business expansion, the unit economics of these firms, which first burned through ridiculous amounts of capital, became realistic.
These business models first appeared, and their success was largely due to their capacity to scale more quickly than their contemporaries, develop rapidly, and outpace the competition. The aforementioned figure illustrates the incredible growth seen by IT companies in comparison to more recent technologies like aircraft and electricity, which took more than 50 years to reach 50 million customers. In contrast, it took YouTube 4, Facebook 3, and Twitter 2 years to reach the same feet.
3-point Blitzscaling framework
1. There is no structure or set of rules.
It basically involves jumping over a cliff without any instructions and building your aeroplane as you go down (as Hoffman describes it). New firms map out their route while investigating the product fit, market fit, and team fit, with intermittent new problems.
They are able to create and work without restrictions thanks to this. For instance, PayPal’s Fintech innovations were made feasible in large part because of ignorance, or not having to follow the banks’ script. Banks were hesitant to test a programme like PayPal because they were aware of the fraud dangers involved.
Similar to this, PayPal’s “refer a friend” programme rewards the person who makes the introduction with a $10 incentive. The buddy was a pioneer in the finance industry. This tactic cut PayPal’s CAC in half from the $40 industry average. This resulted by being creative and deviating from a playbook.
This tactic entails a significant amount of cash burning very rapidly and is managerially inefficient.
2. It turns contentious when efficiency is prioritised over speed
Who are the top three engineers you’ve worked with before, managers would query a newly hired engineer as part of Uber’s blitzscaling process? The engineers would subsequently be sent offer letters. Zero interviews. No verification of references. only a letter of offer. They had to scale their engineering quickly, therefore they used this crucial strategy.
3. Managing the Culture of the Organization
This is yet another essential component of the plan. Along with revenue and customer growth, quick scaling also involves organisation growth. With no specific strategies in place and a constantly changing environment, employees or supervisors have a propensity to feel lost rises.
These people are bound together by their shared commitment to the mission of the organisation and their faith in the founder’s vision, which motivates them to work hard to create a better future. Million-dollar ESOPS are only a reward for being calm throughout these periods when they are successful!
Waging War & Building Businesses Equals
Business strategy blitzscaling is closely related to military strategy blitzkrieg. Contrary to typical conflicts, a blitzkrieg is an all-out or all-in battle tactic in which the attacking forces advance well beyond their supply lines. Once you’ve decided to do something, there is no turning back. The way businesses operate is quite similar. In order to scale more quickly and develop, modern businesses must use comparable measures when outlining strategies for every conflict.
The founder or CEO frequently finds himself in the position of the unit’s commanding officer, making several decisions that determine the future of the business or the nation (in the event of war!).
Employees joining early-stage firms share many similarities with young people enlisting in the military. Both have a strong sense of purpose in their work, a lofty vision, and a willingness to take chances in order to break from the crowd.
The same is true for startups’ client acquisition efforts and a war’s capture of enemy territory. Startups wage war as they expand from their local communities to cities to nations to the global stage, winning small conflicts, seizing border towns to crucial cities to the nation’s capital, and then moving on to the next front.
Business organisations are engaged in a technological arms race with one another. Technology turns become a weapon, and conflict takes the form of disruption.
You see, leading a war is not all that different from running a business.
