  Scale-up is the process of growing a venture in size. The paper identifies
modularity and speed as keys to successful scale-up. On that basis four types
of scale-up are identified: Smart, dumb, forced, and fumbled. Smart scale-up
combines modularity and speed. Dumb scale-up is bespoke and slow, and very
common. The paper presents examples of each type of scale-up, explaining why
they were successful or not. Whether you are a small startup or Elon Musk
trying to grow Tesla and SpaceX or Jeff Bezos scaling up Amazon - or you are
the US, UK, Chinese, or other government trying to increase power production,
expand your infrastructure, or make your health, education, and social services
work better - modularity and speed are the answer to effective delivery, or so
the paper argues. How well you deal with modularity and speed decides whether
your efforts succeed or fail. Most ventures, existing or planned, are neither
fully smart nor fully dumb, but have elements of both. Successful organizations
work to tip the balance towards smart by (a) introducing elements of smart
scale-up into existing ventures and (b) starting new, fully smart-scaled
ventures, to make themselves less dumb and ever smarter.
