(This post was originally published on Reid Hoffman's LinkedIn. Hoffman is a partner at Greylock, co-founder of LinkedIn, and host of the podcast Masters of Scale.)
As a founder, you rarely have enough time to step back and strategize. Entrepreneurs feel the pressure to execute, often prioritizing daily firefighting over long-term planning. You put your blinders on and stay laser-focused on what’s directly ahead.
But one thing I’ve learned in two years of working on Masters of Scale is that investors and entrepreneurs, at all levels, have a lot to teach one another. Every growth story is full of hard-won, often counterintuitive advice. There’s no one perfect way to scale a business, but there’s a lot to be learned from the challenges that other legendary leaders have faced while building wildly successful companies.
This is why Masters of Scale is partnering with Harvard Business School Online to launch a new, one-time-only, real-time online course called Mastering Growth.
Starting October 9 and running weekly until November 16, 2019, Mastering Growth will equip learners with new, often counterintuitive insights to achieve organizational success at scale. In the first five sessions of the course, a renowned Harvard Business School professor will lead students through a case study and illuminate themes and tension points within it—using curated audio from Masters of Scale and wisdom from notable special guests. I’ll then lead the sixth, final session of the course, and dive deeper into theories I’ve introduced in the podcast and my book, Blitzscaling.
The Harvard Business School cases, combined with Masters of Scale episodes, represent a greatest hits of the leading companies of our time—from headline-grabbing superstars like Airbnb, Alibaba, Uber, and Netflix to proven and durable compounders of scale and growth like the legendary Barry Diller. Through this first-ever collaborative course, you’ll learn lessons from esteemed entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders that you can apply to your own company.
Mastering Growth will take place via Harvard Business School Online’s real-time, interactive virtual classroom, giving busy founders and leaders a space to discuss key strategic issues from wherever they are in the world.
You can engage in the course in two exclusive ways: as a Wall Participant and an Observer. Here’s a look at both:
- Wall Participants engage from a curved video wall that enables them to see their peers situated around the classroom, participate in live, multi-person conversations, and speak directly with faculty and me. This immersive experience is limited to 60 seats and mimics what you would experience in a Harvard Business School classroom.
- Observers get a front-row seat to the Wall discussion via livestream, and can share insights with each other through an expert-moderated chat. This experience is limited to 300 learners.
It won’t be recorded, so this is a one-time-only class to experience live. And once the course is filled, it’s filled. So I’d encourage you to apply now.
The life of a leader is busy. It’s hard to find a moment where you can step back and think, and connect with other leaders who are tackling similar challenges. This is your chance—both to learn from legendary Harvard Business School minds and connect with fellow founders and executives. If you want to build the next great company, or take your current company to the next level of scale, join us.
You can learn more about the program on the Mastering Growth page. Seats will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Apply today!
