By: Cassidy Delamarter, USF College of Education Marketing
Everyone wants to build the next Uber or Airbnb, but rapid growth isn鈥檛 magic. New research from the USF College of Education shows rapid growth is the result of small, strategic decisions made early on. No茅mi Nagy, an organizational psychologist and assistant professor in Career and Technical Workforce Education, analyzed platform-based business models to show scaling a business isn鈥檛 about luck or massive funding.
In collaboration with leading innovation hubs, such as ZHAW Startup Campus 鈥� an entrepreneurship hub in Zurich, Switzerland 鈥� Nagy identified key drivers of startup scaling across people, processes and partnerships from interviews, case studies and entrepreneurship success. With that, Nagy developed a growth checklist to offer founders, investors and mentors a self-assessment and coaching tool to benchmark progress and strengthen their organization.
The key findings, dubbed The Growth Checklist, published in :
- Timing is everything: Enter too early and customers aren鈥檛 ready; enter too late and network effects have already picked winners.
- Capital efficiency paradox: Too much early money = distraction. Lean teams stayed focused and grew smarter.
- Network effects drive everything: Once critical mass hits, growth leaps from slow to explosive.
- Usability beats innovation: A simple, intuitive interface was the top factor behind user retention and scaling.
- Professional networks matter: Early users often came from founders鈥� personal circles, not big ads.
- Growth mindset wins: Adaptability beat credentials when predicting platform survival.
- Start with a niche: Successful platforms solved the chicken-and-egg problem by beginning in tightly defined markets.
- Iteration over invention: Constant user feedback and rapid prototyping outperformed 鈥渂ig breakthrough鈥� approaches.
- Think global from day one: Teams that built scalable tech and brand foundations early expanded faster.
- Growth creates tradeoffs: Platforms that scale often see declining innovation from partners, revealing an ecosystem tension worth managing.
Nagy plans to expand this research by interviewing leaders in Florida鈥檚 growing tech sector to study differences and new growth enablers unique to the region. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a bridge between research and real-world entrepreneurship,鈥� Nagy said. 鈥淏y linking evidence-based tools with local startup practice, my work helps ensure that new ventures don鈥檛 just grow fast, but grow wisely.鈥�
Drawing from her research, Nagy is building her own platform startup, Connect(or), with William Scott Burgin, professor and director in the USF Health department of Vascular Neurology. The AI-driven app is designed to bridge researchers and innovators with industry partners by matching professionals across sectors for collaboration. Their hope is to redefine how people discover opportunities to work, create and build together.
鈥淎ll my work comes back to one question: How do people and ventures grow?鈥� Nagy said. 鈥淲hether I鈥檓 researching entrepreneurship, teaching the next generation or engaging with the community, I鈥檓 always focused on helping people navigate and shape their careers because watching people grow into who they want to be professionally and finding the path that fits them is honestly the best part of my job.鈥�