By: Cassidy Delamarter, USF College of Education Marketing
Everyone wants to build the next Uber or Airbnb, but rapid growth isn’t magic. New
research from the USF College of Education shows rapid growth is the result of small,
strategic decisions made early on. Noémi Nagy, an organizational psychologist and
assistant professor in Career and Technical Workforce Education, analyzed platform-based
business models to show scaling a business isn’t about luck or massive funding.
In collaboration with leading innovation hubs, such as ZHAW Startup Campus – an entrepreneurship
hub in Zurich, Switzerland – 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 Springer Nature’s Review of Managerial Science:
- Timing is everything: Enter too early and customers aren’t 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’ 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 “big breakthrough” 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’s growing tech
sector to study differences and new growth enablers unique to the region. “It’s a
bridge between research and real-world entrepreneurship,” Nagy said. “By linking evidence-based
tools with local startup practice, my work helps ensure that new ventures don’t just
grow fast, but grow wisely.”
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.
“All my work comes back to one question: How do people and ventures grow?” Nagy said.
“Whether I’m researching entrepreneurship, teaching the next generation or engaging
with the community, I’m 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.”
