It has never been easier to start a business on the Web, never harder to scale one

The inaugural NetForum meeting was on October 18^th, 2012 on the subject of “It has never been easier to start a business on the Web, never harder to scale one.” The subject of the meeting was right on point, as evidenced by the lively discussion that took place. There was strong support for the fact that the lowering of barriers of entry made it even more important that companies have a strong value proposition. Participants noted that funding rounds are getting smaller because overcapitalizing unbaked ideas did not make sense. It was brought out that not all companies should scale, and won't, and that's probably natural. The ceilings and watershed moments for companies are changing, there is seemingly a new cap where b2c media companies get to $100M and then can’t get to the next level. In b2b that too happens and the bar is probably lower, around $5M. Participants noted that some of the companies that max out are good targets to plug into a traffic funnel. There is also an incredibly important time element -- companies often don't have time to succeed as things are changing quicker every day. There are also major challenges of fighting big entrenched incumbents. Companies are employing all sorts of scaling strategies, some NYC startups are attempting to scale by importing talent from Silicon Valley.  In summary, although the challenges of scaling a business are numerous, there are still industries where the incumbents have been slow to change and these are the places that nimble challengers can still create a big business, even today.