About this Course

What do business luminaries like Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Netflix have in common? They’re digital businesses – meaning that they blur the digital and physical worlds – and their CEOs have built companies from idea to over $10 billion in revenues and kept them growing at an annual rate of at least 20%. The surprising reality is that while you may never reach their level, you can be a better leader by learning from their success. The key is to understand how they grappled with the basic questions of digital strategy and action. How did they: Decide what problem to solve? Create a product that customers were eager to buy? Build their teams to capitalize on growth? Raise capital? Win market share? Sustain growth? In this business and management course, you will learn from these maestros how to pick digital strategies with the greatest potential; use prototypes to match your product to unrelieved customer pain; identify, attract, and motivate the talent your company needs to grow; raise capital while maintaining control of your company’s future; win market share by delivering customers a quantum value leap; and build disciplined growth trajectories. This course will combine the principles of Entrepreneurial Thought & Action ® with the ideas developed in the instructor’s books Hungry Start-Up Strategy (2012) and Disciplined Growth Strategies (2017). It will inspire you with in-depth case studies of how Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos built its most profitable business by selling companies access to the computer infrastructure that powers its e-commerce business; how Facebook boosted 37-fold its April 2012 $1 billion investment in Instagram; how Netflix CEO Reed Hastings wiped out Blockbuster Video through its DVD-by-Mail service and in 2007 moved to replace that service with online streaming when Apple launched the iPhone. Who should take this course Aspiring CEOs should take this class so they can beat the long odds against entrepreneurial success by understanding how the world’s top leaders keep their companies growing. Those who work for big companies can use these insights to accelerate their growth while defending themselves against digital business leaders seeking to win their customers. This course is part of the Business Principles and Entrepreneurial Thought XSeries.

Created by: Babson College

Level: Introductory