Hooked on S-curves

“If you’re going to grow, you have to be intentional about it.” - Curt Kampmeier

This week, we’re bringing back the 60s, baby! Well, not really. But we are bringing up the S-curve, a concept first popularized in 1963 by Ian Roberts, describing business progression over time. But this concept is not new and it’s not just for business. It can also be a valuable tool for startup leaders craving to feed their growth mindset as they consider their next gig.

What’s going on?

All too often we go through the motions in our job-search process. We act like a seeker and not an investor. Sure, we may be effective at honing the what, sometimes the who or where, and maybe the why. But more often than not, we short-cut the steps to properly assess two-way fit. This undermines our ability to unlock the best a company has to offer with the best we can contribute as individuals in a company’s S-curve journey. Startup stages correspond to inflection points on the curve, which also match the attributes of talented individuals who are wickedly motivated to succeed at each stage.

S-curve → Business → Talent

The initial stage along the curve is slow as the company works to gain traction and market validation. Best identified as Seed Stage and early Series A. Talent seeking this stage of the curve are early pioneers who love solving new and challenging problems without a blueprint. It’s all about the journey, not the destination. These are truest “from scratch” builders, less concerned with higher risk. They are often versatile athletes who can flex into multiple areas as they partner to carry the startup forward and enjoy the “learning curve” and the process of value creation. 

At the first inflection point of the curve, rapid growth ensues. Generally coinciding with late Series A to B, sometimes early C. This is where growth and time coincide, and everything is happening quickly. Customers are multiplying and with it, the business is scaling. In this stage, people enjoy the thrill and pace of the business where they accumulate massive experience and growth at scale. They are agile planners at heart and seek ways to ensure the business growth won’t outpace the underlying supporting infrastructure. Change is constant, and they love it.

At the top of the curve, growth begins to naturally slow through market saturation and adoption. Businesses work to stay ahead of this curve by innovating and reinvention, investing in new products to grow through the next curve. The same is true with talent at later Series C and beyond. Just as the business is maturing in many ways, people have often mastered skills acquired through rapid growth. Talent at this stage can sometimes find new internal curves to re-energize their career path. These opportunities are often positioned around managing large teams, climbing internal career ladders, or R&D investments. While this work can still be rewarding, there’s a higher motivation with stability or financial security.

Why does it matter?

When building a startup is in your DNA, you often seek the earlier stages of the S-curve. That said, the differences between the earliest growth and first inflection point should be thoughtfully considered. Often people think they want to join an early, seed stage startup not realizing that the process to reach market viability is long, hard, and filled with starts, stops, and frustration. While there’s a lot of experimenting, creating, and critical thinking, there is not necessarily the quick career acceleration that comes through rapid growth. As maturity in the business happens, there’s a split between those who continue on this curve and those who grow restless to create again, longing to build. Knowing these things is key in finding an opportunity that’s best aligned with your motivations.

What do others think?

“Time is your most precious resource. Think deeply about how you thrive and achieve brilliance. Do you enjoy rapid change, high ambiguity, learning through failure, gritty execution, or being an unknown vs known in the market at large? Understanding your “why” through these dimensions will have an outsized impact on your performance - either amplifying or limiting your efficacy and leverage. Scaling steep learning curves can be incredibly draining, wildly invigorating, and at times, both. Startups are a pure form of evolution and adaptation - so is your talent. You are either growing or dying, making stage fit critical for talent fit. The power of learning unlocks the power to build.” - Elizabeth Liu, CEO at Crowd Cow

“Understanding S-curves can help you make informed decisions about career transitions and ensure that you are continually learning and growing in your professional life. Each part of the curve requires a set of skills to be successful and provides opportunities to develop those skills. You create different impact stories for your career at different points of the curve. Depending on where you are in your career and the macro conditions around you, you may or may not have the freedom of being intentional about where you want to operate on the S-curve and find the right place for it. Regardless, you should be intentional about the skills you should excel at and practice based on the place on the S-curve you do land.” - Sumit Mehrotra, Director of Product @ Databricks

What do we think?

Be an investor in your career. Time is not free. The next cycle(s) you spend at a company should be treated as an investment and assessed in a multidimensional way. Validate your options based on where you know you have the greatest opportunity to impact and grow in the ways you seek. Target companies on a complementary course in their curve. How? Take the time to ask questions and dig deep into the operational viability of the business to understand traction and performance. This, along with team, values, founder habits and philosophies, prioritized DEI, business performance, AND the role, all feed into unlocking your power to contribute in the most meaningful way. 

What do YOU think? 

Take Action

Do your due diligence. Great investors never fund companies that they haven’t thoroughly vetted. Don’t just interview for a role and call it a day. Be intentional and accountable to gain the highest confidence you can in your next opportunity. Don’t place the ownership solely on the company to decide if this is the right fit. 

• Would you invest your own money in this company? Your time is your currency. Spend it wisely.
• Validate the product: Is the product solving a clear customer pain point (pain killer or vitamin)? Is there a compelling value prop? Is this innovative and defensible tech? Is there the right product/market fit? 
• Validate the market: Is there a large target market or opportunity to create one? 
• Is there founder-problem fit? Do they have deep experience and expertise in the market they are targeting?
• Connect with and reference existing customers or early customers in their journey. What’s the feedback?
• What’s the competition? Work to see around the corners and identify the greatest risks across the landscape. 
• Back-channel the founding team. If you think they aren’t back-channeling you, think again.
• Founding team DNA: Integrity, customer-driven, intellectual horsepower, balanced conviction/learning mindset, ambitious, great recruiters
• Take control of your interview success: Flip the script workshop - Take control of determining a 2-way fit. Unskilled interviewers will ask you irrelevant questions that don’t allow you to demonstrate your ability to do the work. Turn bad questions into opportunities to demonstrate your skills.
• Use investor diligence tools like Crunchbase - investors, valuation, funding history, etc. 

How have you thought about your own career journey? What steps have you taken to ensure the odds are more in your favor when taking a leap in your next journey?

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