Your company can enjoy great success fueled by little more than inspiration. A single insight, perhaps sparked by the founder’s direct experience, can drive the first wave of growth. But then... Here’s how to avoid the chaos that sometimes follows a fast, successful start—and get on the right track for continued growth.

In the right hands, brevity can convey deep meaning—but those of us whose jobs involve getting to know customers need to go deep.

Many companies don’t measure R&D efficiency at all. Those that do often use a fatally flawed method: measuring sales per R&D employee. The problem with this common metric is that it provides feedback only after you’ve already made the mistakes that decrease R&D efficiency. Here’s a different approach to measuring R&D efficiency that takes a page from manufacturing’s book—and combines it with a focus on the customer.