Counterintuitively, if you want to drive massive growth at a company, startup or otherwise, it is important to start small first. This essay explains why it is so important to not try and operate at scale from day one:

“Do Things That Don’t Scale” by Paul Graham

Every company needs growth, but startups have to grow or they will die. Furthermore, forcing yourself to focus on growth allows you to decrease the risk your company will never grow by giving you insight into what your obstacles to growth are. These lecture videos illustrate this concept in detail:

“Growth for Startups” by Gustaf Alströmer

“Startup = Growth” by Paul Graham

“Building Product” by Michael Seibel

Selling is a learnable skill, and once you have done the proper experiments and interviews and received results which demonstrate your company’s product is solving a real problem, you can finally get started. This video gives a overview of how to do this well:

“How to Sell” by Tyler Bosmeny

Once you have a product which someone is using and paying you for in either time or money, as you try and sell it to more customers it is important to understand your marketing will have to change as you expand your base of customers. This classic book shows how to achieve this and avoid the dreaded marketing chasm which prevents most startups from ever reaching their full potential:

Crossing The Chasm by Geoffrey Moore

Finally, if you are successful you will eventually find the holy grail of growth, otherwise known as Product Market Fit. It is important to understand when you have it and when you do not, and then if by a miracle you do, what to do after. These lecture videos cover how to do this:

“How to Grow and Get Users” by Gustaf Alströmer

“How to Measure Your Product” by Suhail Doshi

“How to Find Product Market Fit” by David Rusenko

“After Product Market Fit” by Mathilde Collin