Startups and the hurdles of scaling-up

The start-up world is obsessed by the concept of scalability and exponential growth. That’s why scholars and practitioners started making a distinction between early-stage initiatives (start-ups) and real companies able to produce revenue and employment (the so-called scale-ups). A recently published article by Shepherd et al. (2021) points out how “too often the start-up and the scaling stages are merged (and the difference ignored), [this] has obstructed knowledge creation”. Moreover, in this field of research “wisdom of practice” is often more advanced than theory. Therefore, in an attempt of providing a clear-cut picture of the topic under investigation, we adopt the double-side perspective of practitioners and academics, who have been focusing their research efforts on this field for decades. In the end, the chapter also provides an overview of the main hurdles characterizing the scale-up process