This course surveys the personal, institutional, and operational challenges involved in scaling an entrepreneurial venture. It examines effective and ineffective solutions while addressing leadership, culture, operations, governance, and human resources. The course includes case studies and guest speakers.

The objective is to allow students to examine common challenges to scaling an entrepreneurial venture and empower future entrepreneurial leaders with the skills necessary to scale ventures into large companies with significant impact.

Prerequisites

15.390 New Enterprises or demonstrated proficiency with the Disciplined Entrepreneurship framework and general startup principles.

Session Topics

• Founder to CEO Transition: The shift from startup founder to scaleup CEO. What changes when you go from building a product to building a company.
• Organizational Design: Frameworks for scaling organizational structure and decision-making at speed — featuring the Formlabs story.
• Boards & Governance: Building effective scaleup boards and evolving advisory boards as your company grows beyond its founding stage.
• Go-To-Market at Scale: Building a durable go-to-market engine. How HubSpot evolved from startup scrappiness to scaleup systems.
• Strategy & Category Creation: Strategy lessons from unconventional sources — including The Grateful Dead — and marketing in an AI-native world.
• Scaleup Fundraising: How funding rounds differ, raising a Series A, and why Series B is usually the hardest. Featuring Klaviyo co-founder Ed Hallen.
• Product Development at Scale: Building product development engines that scale beyond heroics. With Toast CTO & co-founder Steve Fredette.
• AI-Native Hypergrowers: Inside companies like Suno, Rogo, and Profound — designed from day one to scale faster with AI embedded in everything.
• Scaling People & Culture: Hiring, firing, culture codes, and what happens to careers in an AI-native world. With HubSpot’s Alison Elworthy.
• Customer Delight at Scale: How Chewy profitably scaled customer delight into a competitive moat. Case study and guest lecture with Larry Cheng.