DEV Community: Thomas A. McGonagle

The Paperboy

Thomas A. McGonagle — Mon, 11 Jul 2022 03:06:44 +0000

The Paperboy...
Its 5AM, its pitch black out, and its 34 degrees and sleeting. The wind is screaming, you’re 9 years old, and you have to deliver the papers. You get up, put on 3 pairs of sweat pants, and 4 sweatshirts. 60 lbs of papers have just been dropped off, and you grab your flashlight and a razor to open the bindle. You spend the next 30 minutes in your garage folding the papers into tight packets and you load up your paper route bags which are tied to your bike.

You head out into the snow, and walk your bike the first half of the route which has 3 monstrous hills. The bike eventually becomes light enough to ride and the cold becomes less and less horrible. It takes over 2 hours to deliver a paper to each of your 160 customers. Barely enough time to get ready and get to school.

This was my daily ritual 7 days a week for 3 years delivering the Boston Globe in Winchester, MA. The job was hard but lucrative and it taught me everything I ever needed to know about business. My paper service provided a $5,000 dollar college scholarship which you were entitled to for three years of service. $5,000 in the late early 90s was a lot of money for college. My undergrad degree from Bentley University was $75,000 and I minimized that further by receiving grants to play Division II Football as an Offensive Left Tackle, and working 20 hours a week at a Dotcom startup, e-Dialog, where I discovered Linux in 1997, and sent me on the trajectory I find myself on today at Armory.io.

Delivering the Globe taught me the value of hard work and how life is linearly rewarding. The more you put into something the more you get out of it. Anything worth doing is hard, and strength can be manifested in character and body. My paper proceeds were invested in the nicest X-men comic book collection in the North East.

At times I felt like Sisyphus. My 80 pound bike was a boulder and I was a bit of a trickster who in fact had cheated death. I spent the better part of my 3rd year in Children’s Hospital with a wicked infection in my right ankle which massive amounts of antibiotics could barely control.

Both of my parents had paper routes, and I was always a business man. My paternal grandfather Daniel R. McGonagle Sr. put three kids through college selling flashlights door to door. He opened one door at a time and emptied his car trunk literally every day seven days a week.

I quickly discovered there was a side business opportunity for a paper boy walking dogs. I had a business called Pet Care Extradinaire, and my tagline was: If you have something to do and your pets being a pest, give me a call and Ill do all the rest.

In the afternoons I had the keys to 15-20 houses and would walk their dogs. Some were good dogs and some were bad. And I was lucky I wore 4 sweatshirts as dog attacks are a hazzard of the paper route and dog walking professions. The worst and last one was very bloody, and I always carried a can of mace, and a wrench afterwards.

Today, I value the hard work that I put into that paper route. It taught me so many valuable lessons that I still use today. I am sure there are other jobs that have done this for others and I’d love to hear about them.

How A Clear Strategy Guides Your Blitzscaling Practice

Thomas A. McGonagle — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 14:25:27 +0000

Colonel John Boyd was one of the best fighter pilots on the planet who risked his life every time he jumped into the cockpit. But thanks to his OODA loop strategy, high-velocity chases, death-defying rolls, and last-gasp pivots were no longer uncomfortable.
Almost 70 years after the Korean War ended, his aerial battle strategy is one of the most popular business decision-making frameworks in the world, used by many fast-growing companies to guide their blitzscaling tactics.
So, what does the military philosophy of a 1950s dogfighter have to do with the needs of fast-scaling startups today?
Let’s consider the four stages of the OODA loop:
Observe: Decision-makers must study their environment, identify changes at the micro or macro level, and determine whether a response is required.
Orient: With their observations at hand, decision-makers must position themselves to protect against threats or take advantage of opportunities.
Decide: Decision-makers must confirm if they are going to respond to the changing environment. While quick decision-making is encouraged, you should avoid acting out of any sense of obligation. Sometimes, the best course of action is to do nothing.
Act: Once decision-makers have made up their minds, they should act quickly.
Blitzscaling businesses can apply the tenets of the OODA loop to assess their current environment quickly, prepare for likely scenarios, make quick decisions and take action.
This strategy is an iterative process that encourages rapid decision-making and consistent optimization, as decision-makers will return to the observation stage to assess the results before repeating the process.

Final Thoughts
Whether it’s boxing, wrestling, or blitzscaling, real growth only happens when you consistently put yourself in uncomfortable situations. It’s only through practice that you can develop the situational awareness you need to adapt to changes.
When you're trying to move through the levels rapidly, things may seem chaotic without any clear or coherent plan. Whether 3 hours doing situps and punching things or it's grueling rounds at the gym, or endless dark mornings trudging through the snow with a bicycle heavy laden with newspapers, you can easily lose sight of your goals.

Taking a proactive approach to practice and applying Boyd's strategy of an iterative loop will give you some direction. You can continually observe your ever-evolving environment, aggressively solve problems, and make changes on the fly. In short, you must embrace the chaos, harness your most elite inner just like a fighter pilot.
I love to talk about fighting and blitzscaling. If anyone is interested, please do reach out. My work email is thomas@armory.io, my calendly is https://calendly.com/thomas-mcgonagle and my cellphone is 339-203-3816. You can call anytime.

9 Tactics to Guide Your Blitzscaling Practice

Thomas A. McGonagle — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 14:20:42 +0000

Ari Libarikian is a senior partner of Leap, McKinsey's business-building capability.
He explains that “the companies that have stayed at the top for decades are always regenerating. This is really a requirement to being successful today.”
Serial business builders, like Amazon, Google and Facebook, are always regenerating. They adapt to changes in their environment and constantly launch new products, services and business ventures. In other words, they have mastered the art of blitzscaling.
For that to be possible for your business, you have to forget almost everything you learned in business school. Here are nine counter-intuitive principles of blitzscaling to guide your efforts in practice:

**Embrace the Chaos
**Making speed paramount at the expense of efficiency, order and stability have to go out the window means things will get a little haphazard. You must accept that your business is in for a bumpy ride in the quest for product-market fit. Turbulence can be fun and is fun!
Hire Ms. Right Now, Not Ms. Right
Some people might be a great fit for the latter phases of blitzscaling but less suited to the earlier startup phases. Aim to recruit the right people at the right time. Similarly, be prepared to let people go as you grow.
**Practice “Bad” Management
**If you're truly embracing the chaos, the structure of your organization will bend and mold multiple times each year. Worry less about keeping things organized, so you prepare to handle unexpected challenges.
Launch a Product That Embarrasses You
A perfectionist won't succeed in this game. You need to jump in the ring and start making mistakes. You might get embarrassed, but the sooner you get your MVP into customers' hands, the quicker you can get feedback that helps you iterate and improve. I was an awful wrestler, until one day I wasn’t. Be awful until you aren’t.
**Let Fires Burn
**The second of Kravernetes Tenants is to “be vigilant in identifying and addressing challenges.” When you’re trying to grow quickly, you won’t be able to handle every problem. Focus on the key strategic areas that will fuel your growth or the major issues that could potentially ruin you. Forget everything else.
**Do Things That Don’t Scale
**When the Airbnb founders went banging on doors doorknocking to take quality photos of their listings, they knew it wasn't a scalable solution. But sometimes, before you can scale, you have to do the things that matter by any means possible.
**Ignore Your Customers
**Getting feedback from customers will help you improve your product with every iteration. But you must figure out how to scale your customer service to appeal to a broader audience, which will mean letting some issues go in the early days.
**Raise Too Much Money
**A defining aspect of blitzscaling is the inefficient use of capital. Having a large war chest is a defensive tactic to protect scaleups from crashing and burning—but it can also work offensively. Having deep pockets will enable you to take advantage of new opportunities that arise as you scale at speed.
**Evolve Your Culture
**Startup founders will set the tone for company culture, but it’s by no means set in stone. As your company grows and adds more people, the culture will naturally change.

Blitzscale Tactics: Relentless Practice Over Perfect Planning

Thomas A. McGonagle — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 12:14:03 +0000

Anything worth doing in life is hard. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a paper route in the Boston winter, a boxing match fight or blitzscaling your business—you have to get outside your comfort zone and to grow.
Blitzscaling, which prioritizes speed over efficiency when growing your company, will push your team into past their comfort zone unfamiliar territory. As you prioritize speed over efficiency in uncertain environments, you will make mistakes. This relentless advance moves at an uncomfortable pace for many people. But the only way to learn from your mistakes and grow is through constant practice, practice, practice. And once you are done practicing. Practice some more.
Why Practice Matters in Blitzscaling
Anyone can talk the talk but it's the walking rightously that matters. If you want to sprint run, you need to do more than talk. You need to play the game. The more you play, the better you get, and the better you get, the more you play. Your team must take consistent action to test new ideas and hone new skills.
Kravernetes Tenents advocate using simple and repeatable techniques and invoking precision when executing these tasks. The truth is that precision will only come when you repeat a technique 10,000 countless times.
The best fighters boxers in the world understand this concept. Every day they trainin training, they practice the same techniques over and over relentlessly. The same foot movements; the same punches; the same combinations. For new fighters newcomers, it feels like overkill alien at first, but repetition enforces muscle memory breeds conviction. Through continuous drilling, everything begins to happen automatically. And then, in the match fight, a the boxer can go into war God mode and rely entirely on rely on muscle memory. In wrestling for example, I found the threshold somewhere around practicing a move 1,000 times before being able to do it in a match.
It sounds ridiculous but I shadow box 3 hours a day and have for most of my adult life. I am often surprised by just how many people don’t know what wins fights….Particularly marines never know this. Its not part of their training which is somewhere south of 20 hours of hand to hand training for the average leatherhead. It is simple. Footwork wins fights every time. It doesn’t matter what the sport. Footwork trumps everything. A fight completely changes every time you slide to the right. The angles change. The way you win a fight is you control the angles and your position against your opponent. WYou can literally kill someone with just a simple left jab. Punch him in the nose, take a step back. Do it over and over again, and I guarantee they will eventually stop coming at you. Don’t get me wrong, I have thrown my share of haymakers, or even suicide punches, but they are easy to block and leave you exposed. Don’t get me wrong they have a role and can definitely make a point. But what wins fights is footwork.

Second Blog

In the startup world, the companies that consider all the angles and train hard to become more agile will be the ones that can move fast and are ready to respond to changes. Being slow to react or making the wrong decisions under pressure might not result in you getting brutally separated from your consciousness—but it could mean a knockout blow for your business. The hot blood rush of a concussion can be difficult to deal with, especially when everything turns grey…My advice for startups and individuals is simply don’t get punched. Stay out of reach. Move. Slide. And constantly change the angles.

9 Tactics to Guide Your Blitzscaling Practice
In the startup world, the companies that consider all the angles and train hard to become deadly will be the ones that can move fast and are ready to respond to changes. Being slow to react or making the wrong decisions under pressure might not result in you getting brutally separated from your consciousness—but it could mean a knockout blow for your business. The hot painful blood rush of a concussion can be difficult to deal with, especially when everything turns grey…My advice for startups and individuals is simply don’t get punched. Stay out of reach. Move. Slide. And constantly change the angles of the attack.
Ari Libarikian is a senior partner of Leap, McKinsey's business-building capability.
He explains that “the companies that have stayed at the top for decades are always regenerating. This is really a requirement to being successful today.”
Serial business builders, like Amazon, Google and Facebook, are always regenerating. They adapt to changes in their environment and constantly launch new products, services and business ventures. In other words, they have mastered the art of blitzscaling.
For that to be possible for your business, you have to forget almost everything you learned in business school. Here are nine counter-intuitive principles of blitzscaling to guide your efforts in practice:
Embrace the Chaos
Excuse my French, but I fucking love chaos. I was designed for War. Business War requires Mmaking speed paramount at the expense of efficiency, order and stability have to go out the window means things will get a little haphazard. You must accept that your business is in for a bumpy ride in the quest for product-market fit. Turbulence can be fun and is fun!
Hire Ms. Right Now, Not Ms. Right
Some people might be a great fit for the latter phases of blitzscaling but less suited to the earlier startup phases. Aim to recruit the right people at the right time. Similarly, be prepared to let people go as you grow.
Practice “Bad” Management
If you're truly embracing the chaos, the structure of your organization will bend and mold multiple times each year. Worry less about keeping things organized, so you prepare to handle unexpected challenges.
Launch a Product That Embarrasses You
A perfectionist won't succeed in this game. You need to jump in the ring and start making mistakes. You might get embarrassed, but the sooner you get your MVP into customers' hands, the quicker you can get feedback that helps you iterate and improve. I was an awful wrestler, until one day I wasn’t. Be awful until you aren’t.
Let Fires Burn
The second of Kravernetes Tenants is to “be vigilant in identifying and addressing challenges.” When you’re trying to grow quickly, you won’t be able to handle every problem. Focus on the key strategic areas that will fuel your growth or the major issues that could potentially ruin you. Forget everything else.
Do Things That Don’t Scale
When the Airbnb founders went banging on doors doorknocking to take quality photos of their listings, they knew it wasn't a scalable solution. But sometimes, before you can scale, you have to do the things that matter by any means possible. Courage and bravery are important. The Gods will reward you. .
Ignore Your Customers
Getting feedback from customers will help you improve your product with every iteration. But you must figure out how to scale your customer service to appeal to a broader audience, which will mean letting some issues go in the early days.
Raise Too Much Money
A defining aspect of blitzscaling is the inefficient use of capital. Having a large war chest is a defensive tactic to protect scaleups from crashing and burning—but it can also work offensively. Having deep pockets will enable you to take advantage of new opportunities that arise as you scale at speed.
Evolve Your Culture
Startup founders will set the tone for company culture, but it’s by no means set in stone. As your company grows and adds more people, the culture will naturally change.

Moving at Lightning Speed: Kubernetes Meets Blitzscaling

Thomas A. McGonagle — Fri, 11 Mar 2022 16:25:45 +0000

The wisdom of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s 2019 statement said, “every company is now a software company” becomes clearer every day as more businesses seek to remake themselves around data and the digital tools to manage it.
International Data Corporation (IDC) says 53% of large organizations now have a digital transformation strategy in place and predicts half of all companies will derive more than 40% of revenue from digital products and services by 2023, up by one-third today.
That’s going to require an awful lot of software. And, most companies will tell you that building software isn’t their greatest strength. However, it’s a competency they will have to develop if they want to realize the potential to remake their businesses.
Consider that eight of the world’s 10 most highly valued companies are technology firms that distinguish themselves primarily by the innovation in their software. Even old-line heavy industries see their future there. General Motors’ Ultifi, an operating system for its built-in vehicle intelligence platform, that is expected to ultimately make thousands of software apps available to drivers, is part of what the automaker said is a wholesale transformation of its business model from carmaker to software provider.
“Today, cars are enabled by software; with Ultifi, cars will be defined by it,” said Scott Miller, GM's vice president of software-defined vehicles.
Successful companies today are moving software to market at high speed and large scale in a process known as “blitzscaling” a term coined by Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh in their book of the same name. Blitzscaling prioritizes speed over efficiency and describes the way successful entrepreneurial firms put growth above all other considerations with the expectation that most problems can be fixed later. There’s sound business logic behind a strategy: McKinsey reports that companies in the top quartile of its Developer Velocity Index – a metric that assesses both speed and software quality – outperform others in the market by a factor of at least four.
Kubernetes enables continuous delivery
Kubernetes, which is effectively a distributed operating system for the cloud, is rapidly becoming the platform of choice for deploying software in containers. Nearly 90% of DevOps teams use Kubernetes and more than two-thirds of enterprise IT organizations will migrate their big data applications to containers managed by Kubernetes by the end of this year, according to a new Pepperdata report.
Kubernetes is an ideal platform for blitzscaling. Containers stored in libraries can be spun up in seconds, making developers instantly productive. Kubernetes scales infinitely and can orchestrate large and sophisticated applications built on a mesh of containerized services, monitoring container health and restarting services as needed. This makes it possible to extend and improve applications while they’re running.
For all its rich functionality, though, Kubernetes is not simple to install or manage. As organizations grow their cluster deployments from a few instances to hundreds or thousands, they often find they lack the skills they need to monitor and troubleshoot complex environments. Scaling the environment can also be frustrated by internal issues, such as siloed teams, homegrown tools and manual processes, not to mention the complexity of accommodating each developer’s preferred tools. Performance and account management challenges can also arise from the need to continuously retrieve the data needed to manage Kubernetes clusters.
Spinnaker can be a developer’s best friend
That’s why Spinnaker was invented. It’s an open-source, continuous delivery platform for managing software development pipelines at speed at scale. Spinnaker combines pipeline management and integrations with the major cloud providers with a host of nice features for access control, testing, and fine-tuning of deployments.
One of the most powerful features of Spinnaker is Clouddriver, a service that can create server groups, change load balancers and keep track of the health of clusters in cloud Kubernetes instances. Clouddriver’s caching agents continually monitor cloud infrastructure and log the results in a cache to enable rapid response and automated resource management.
Organizations can use the combination of Spinnaker and Kubernetes to scale to millions of clusters, but that can introduce new problems in the sheer volume of data that must flow into the Clouddriver cache. Continuous retrieval of data — even when nothing has changed — can bog down performance. If the infrastructure isn’t designed to parse the volume of data generated by large environments, the development organization can effectively be blind to the health of the deployment environment.
Spinnaker also has some shortcomings in the area of security. Its centralized architecture can make it difficult for teams to manage credentials and permissions on a per-cluster basis, a problem that becomes complex with scale. Spinnaker also doesn’t offer built-in secrets management, relying on third-party integrations for that capability.
The Armory Agent difference
Armory was built to enhance Spinnaker with the features enterprise development organizations need. The Armory Agent is an in-cluster proxy that listens for changes at the cluster level and streams them back to Spinnaker. It uses a very efficient protocol running over a single TCP connection for each cluster to reduce performance hits due to data volumes significantly. The agent leverages the Kubernetes API to enable Clouddriver to communicate to all the clusters it manages. Any changes to the infrastructure appear in the Spinnaker cache in real time. This cluster-level approach further reduces the amount of redundant data that needs to be retrieved.
Armory provides a collaborative delivery environment making software delivery continuous, collaborative, scalable and safe. Continuous delivery to kubernetes clusters at blitzscale benefit from Armory's Armory Agent, so your company can achieve blitzscale and scale to thousands of clusters on-demand without compromising security, usability or speed.
On the security front, account management is certified using in-cluster agents. This allows teams to manage credentials and permissions anytime, anywhere without restraining Spinnaker. Account management is decentralized, and Kubernetes API servers can be kept private from Spinnaker.
The result is that individual developers can get a single and holistic view of deployments and application infrastructure that extends from their local laptops into production environments. Armory abstracts away much of the complexity to let them take ownership of their services without having to become infrastructure experts. Development organizations can use Armory to scale to thousands of clusters or more on-demand without compromising security, usability, or speed.
That sounds a lot like blitzscaling, doesn’t it?

The five stages of Blitzscaling

Thomas A. McGonagle — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 23:26:13 +0000

The 5 Stages of Blitzscaling
If you’ve ever worked for a fast-growing startup, you know what the pace and operating structure can be like. New people appear in the office and disappear just as quickly. Phones ring off the hook because no one is available to answer them. Niceties, such as performance reviews and strategic planning sessions, go by the boards. Everyone is traveling 100 miles an hour, even if they aren’t entirely sure what the destination is.
Such companies are “blitzscaling,” or operating at a pace at which the need to grow outstrips nearly every other consideration. Blitzscaling is a specific set of practices for igniting and managing accelerated growth. The term was coined by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh in their book of the same name to describe the way successful entrepreneurial firms put growth above all other considerations with the expectation that problems can be fixed later.
Successful blitzscalers prioritize speed over efficiency in an environment of uncertainty and allows them to scale at a furious pace that captures the market. Companies can grow incredibly fast, become very large and transform markets, like Amazon, PayPal, and Google have done.
But, the tactics that get them to each stage of growth change as a function of their scope, customer base and business environment. The skillsets they need also change as the business becomes more stable and diversified. The trick is to preserve the best characteristics of a high-growth company without dragging along the baggage of chaos and inefficiency that accompanies it.
Hoffman and Yeh define the five stages of growth for high-speed businesses: family, tribe, village, city and nation. Each works very differently.
Family
These are businesses at the early-stage of startup that may have only a few employees. Their ideas about what product to build and market to serve are typically vague and changeable. Companies at the family stage are often most concerned with securing the funding needed to get to a proof-of-concept for their business. They can move quickly because the consequences of failure are low, but so are the chances of success. Blitzscaling is usually not a growth option at this stage.
Tribal
These are companies that have a more fully formed business plan and may have prototypes or working products in the market. They’re still figuring out the right customer mix and whether the business can scale. Such businesses may blitzscale at the risk of flaming out or they might choose to bide their time and seek further funding for more managed growth.
Village
The village stage is when blitzscaling is most likely to occur. This is when businesses know they have a viable and potentially hit product and are racing to grow as quickly as possible. Sales and customer service are usually top priorities and organizational discipline is not. Companies at the village scale may have more than 100 employees and attract enough investment to let them get away with inefficiencies for a while. They’re also attracting the attention of competitors, both large and small. Speed is their greatest asset, but they must balance the mandate to grow quickly with the need to put structures in place to prevent the organization from spinning out of control.
City
Once a business reaches the city stage, its priorities usually change radically. It has paying customers that rely on it to deliver and support reliable products. Its revenue stream is becoming more predictable and it may be eyeing new product lines, markets of acquisitions. Structure and process are needed, along with new skills to manage such functions as human resources, accounting and operations.
Blitzscaling is usually not an option for the entire company at this point, but blitzscaling principles may be applied to new product launches through small teams that operate autonomously.
Nation
At the nation stage, scale stability trumps all other objectives. The company probably has one or two cash cow products that make up most of its revenues. And, its priorities are to protect its current revenue stream and find new avenues of growth. Blitzscaling is out of the question for companies this size, but they are often in the hunt to acquire fleet-footed startups and may fund internal projects that use blitzscaling tactics.
It’s been said that CEOs who get their companies to $1 billion usually aren’t the same as those who get them to $10 billion. When you consider how priorities and operating principles change as businesses grow, that isn’t surprising. The most successful companies manage to retain traces of the blitzscaling tribal culture even when their business is global.
Want to learn more about the benefits of blitzscaling? Read “Benefits of Blitzscaling: The Winner-Takes-All Growth Strategy”

Four Benefits of Blitzscaling

Thomas A. McGonagle — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 23:25:33 +0000

4 Benefits of Blitzscaling

The Blitzkreig battle strategy delivers an overwhelming strike on enemy lines, from which they can rarely recover. So, how does such an aggressive approach translate to business success?
Here are four benefits of blitzscaling your startup:

Gain long-term competitive advantages

The first to market often dominates. If a startup makes speed paramount to their growth strategy, they can take hold of a new market while others are still uncertain. While that’s no guarantee, success stories from Silicon Valley in recent years show a clear advantage for those who move fast.
Facebook became one of the world’s biggest internet services in a little over five years. Uber created a new category when its ridesharing app disrupted the taxi industry, and Netflix put Blockbuster out of business to become the leading light of streaming video content.
All three of these companies grew quickly, taking on huge debts and losses along the way. But the gamble paid off, as they are all market leaders.

Attract investors and establish authority

As McGregor gained recognition for his skills as an entertainer—both inside and outside the ring—the media frenzy went into overdrive. Sponsors flooded in, and the UFC's marketing machine placed their bets behind the new Golden boy of MMA. Seemingly overnight, there was an untouchable aura around the fighter, fast-tracking him to the pay-per-view events and protecting him from tricky matchups that could derail the project.
When a startup scales to take the high ground, everyone notices. And soon enough, investors show up, keen to back the market leader. Once that happens, the fast-scaling startup has solid foundations to continue its growth. It’s no longer bravado from a young upstart—it’s a marketable asset with bonafide potential for dominance.

Acquire the best talent

Venture capitalists aren’t the only people who want to ride on the coattails of a shooting star. Top professionals know they can accomplish more with a market leader.
Scaleup employees stand a good chance of becoming extremely rich. Therefore, blitzscaling startups are more appealing to the best talent, which helps the company continue innovating at speed.
When Uber added more users to its app, it needed more drivers. Hiring more drivers helped reduce waiting times, making the service more convenient and accessible for people, thereby attracting more new customers. It's a positive feedback loop that drives consistent growth.

Save time on decision-making

Dithering over big decisions can cost you everything. Whether it’s the split-second judgment in hand-to-hand combat or choosing where to invest your resources in business, you have to commit.
When you are blitzscaling, you commit to decisions quickly—even if you don’t feel entirely confident about what might happen. It’s better to take a risk than lose out on the potentially immense rewards.
When toying with the idea of adding a new mobile-first social messaging network, Pony Ma was aware of the risk to Tencent’s existing businesses, not to mention the relationships with many of China’s most powerful companies.
But rather than call a committee meeting, the maverick CEO made a quick call to greenlight the new project, setting up a crack team of just seven engineers. A few short years later, Ma's daring gamble had paid off. WeChat crushed all competition and turned Tencent into one of the most valuable companies on the planet, worth over $500 billion.

Get a Little Help From Friends

After a post-fight press conference, camera footage emerged of Conor McGregor preparing backstage before the fight. He was shadowboxing with a training partner and practicing the exact same strike. It was that simple, repeatable technique with the help of a partner proved so decisive in his fights.
Blitzscaling within your organization also requires a bit of help. Software needs to be developed at blitzscale. And, blitzscaling within a company requires continuous delivery. Additionally, almost half of all organizations use Kubernetes (K8s) to empower continuous integration and continuous development (CI/CD) and stay competitive in a software-centric world.
And, that is where a partner, such as Armory, comes in. Armory provides a collaborative delivery environment making software delivery continuous, collaborative, scalable and safe. Continuous delivery to kubernetes clusters at blitzscale can benefit from Armory's Armory Agent, a lightweight, scalable service that monitors your Kubernetes infrastructure and streams changes back to Spinnaker’s Clouddriver service.
By integrating Armory Agent, your company can achieve blitzscale and scale to thousands of clusters on-demand without compromising security, usability or speed.

Final Thoughts

At the post-fight press conference, Conor McGregor stood composed in a room full of reporters, just as calm as was when he fearlessly stepped forward within striking distance of a formidable foe that hadn't tasted defeat in over a decade.
In the opening few minutes, the room fell silent as a reporter recounted an earlier conversation before the fight where McGregor had unerringly predicted the manner of his victory. Ever the philosopher, McGregor offered up a gem, claiming that “timing beats speed, and precision beats power.”
Airbnb and Uber did not have the most powerful war chests. But like McGregor, they had a plan and knew how to execute it before their rivals could react. Blitzscaling puts speed and aggressive progress ahead of certainty. Scaleups react without hesitation, ensuring they take action at the perfect time while others are still thinking. It is a high-risk, high-reward strategy where the winner takes all.

Benefits of Blitzscaling: The Winner-Takes-All Growth Strategy

Thomas A. McGonagle — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 23:19:40 +0000

In the wake of his stunning 13-second victory at UFC 194 in December 2015, Conor McGregor was at the top of the mixed martial arts world. His rapid ascent to the throne was all about speed.
McGregor -- a formidable self-promoter on the mic -- talked his way into a title shot quicker than many felt he deserved—skipping other contenders along the way. In under three years, the former plumber had become a multimillionaire world champion and was now the unstoppable force that everyone wanted to catch.
There is a similar gung-ho strategy in the business world known as blitzscaling. When done successfully, blitzscaling is a catalyst for rapid growth that enables you to capture and dominate a massive global market.
And, when you understand the benefits of blitzscaling, you can learn what you can gain when you throw the standard business roadmap out the window. Plus, explore why fast-growing startups take the risk and see if your business should risk it, too.

What is Blitzscaling?

Blitzscaling is an accelerated growth strategy that digital businesses in uncertain markets can use to rapidly expand and capture the market. By prioritizing speed over efficiency, blitzscaling gives companies the first-mover advantage, overwhelming all competitors before they can react.
A perfect example of blitzscaling is the hospitality startup Airbnb. When a German copycat with a $90 million war chest and a 400-strong team sought to corner the European market, Airbnb had only 40 employees and $7 million. Everything was on the line, so Airbnb struck hard and fast. The American company opened 10 offices in Europe, hired hundreds of employees, and won the battle within three months.

What Are The Origins Of Blitzscaling?

The concept of blitzscaling was created by LinkedIn co-founder Reif Hoffman. In the book he co-authored with Chris Yeh, Hoffman explains that “the objective of blitzscaling is not to go from zero to one, but to go from one to one billion—as quickly as possible.”
The moniker has roots in the German war strategy, blitzkrieg, which literally means "lightning war." Despite the unfortunate connotation, the World War II military tactic was undeniably successful.
The German army was able to take opponents by surprise because their soldiers only took the bare essentials. They could move quickly and make snap decisions without encumberment from excessive supplies and overplanning.
Hoffman asserts the same mentality in business can help you blow competitors out of the water. When faced with fierce competition, the company that gets an early edge often takes control of the marketplace. As such, he believes that blitzscaling is the secret to building a massively valuable technology company.

Kravernetes

Thomas A. McGonagle — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 22:32:33 +0000

What does everyone think about my Kravernetes idea - https://mcgonagle.github.io/kravernetes/