Growing on Steroids: Rapidly Scaling the User Base of Digital Ventures Through Digital Innovation

By Jimmy C. Huang, Ola Henfridsson, Martin J. Liu, S. Newell. MIS Q., 2017

455 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Digital ventures, start-ups growing by drawing on and adding to digital infrastructures, can scale their business at an unprecedented pace. We view such rapid scaling as a generative process by which a venture's user base increases significantly between two points in time through digital innovation. We studied WeCash, a Chinese digital venture, nearly doubling its user base monthly, to learn more about this generative process. We trace three contingent mechanisms underpinning rapid scaling: data-driven operation, instant release, and swift transformation. We explain these mechanisms and how they interact in the rapid scaling of digital ventures. The research offers an agency perspective on scaling of digital ventures that speaks to the digital innovation literature.

Subfields: Computer Science Applications, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4b1ce3af86d585464363f9985b01cc39d85a1079

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In Computer Science Applications

In Strategy and Management

Citations in the corpus

Recombination in the open-ended value landscape of digital innovation (2018, background): “In many start-ups, this measure of scaling is important for putting a value on the company (Huang et al. 2017), since it indicates a value capture potential.”
Unpacking the Difference Between Digital Transformation and IT-Enabled Organizational Transformation (2021, background): “…organizations continuously experience internal transformations that change how they create value (Dremel et al., 2017; Günther et al., 2017; Huang et al., 2017; Porter & Heppelmann, 2015; Wulf, Mettler, & Brenner, 2017) and structure their processes (Morakanyane, Grace, & O’Reilly, 2017;…”
A Systematic Review of the Literature on Digital Transformation: Insights and Implications for Strategy and Organizational Change (2020, methodology): “As indicated by Huang et al. (2017), swift transformation is also related to ‘double loop’ learning (i.e., changing routines in order to correct detected errors) or even ‘deutero learning’ (described as learning to learn).”
Introduction - Platforms and Infrastructures in the Digital Age (2018, background): “In nascent markets, this creates strong incentives to grow the user base quickly (Huang et al. 2017).”
The digital transformation of innovation and entrepreneurship: Progress, challenges and key themes (2019, background): “…integrate digital and non-digital assets, and accelerate the inception, scaling and evolution of new ventures (e.g., Fischer, and Reuber, 2011; Huang et al., 2017; Lyytinen et al., 2016; Rayna et al., 2015; Srinivasan and Venkatraman, 2018; von Briel et al., 2018a, b; Younkin and Kashkooli,…”