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Successful technology companies connect a real customer need to a viable business model, earn adoption, and keep adapting as they grow. Strong execution matters too: leaders align technology with business priorities, organize teams around products and value, and build the culture and skills needed to learn quickly. These factors can improve a company’s prospects, but none guarantees success.
Start with a market need and a way to capture value
A technology company needs more than an interesting invention. It must identify a market where customers have a meaningful problem, offer a solution they will adopt, and find a way for that adoption to produce durable economic value. McKinsey’s 2014 analysis of technology-company growth identifies market choice and monetization among the early growth enablers.
Those elements depend on each other. A large market is not enough if the product does not solve a problem customers care about; strong adoption is not enough if the company cannot monetize it sustainably. As you assess a business, ask:
- Who has the problem, and how important is it to them?
- Does the offering solve it well enough to earn repeat use or continued demand?
- Can the company turn that demand into revenue and economic value?
- Does its growth plan match the market and the company’s capacity to serve it?
Match the growth strategy to the company’s stage
The next move that helps a young company find demand may not be the right move once it has a successful product. McKinsey’s historical growth framework describes early growth as depending on choosing a market and monetization model and achieving rapid adoption. It then identifies several possible ways to extend growth: enter new geographies or channels, take an offer into another product market, or develop it into a platform.
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That analysis drew on roughly 3,000 internet, application, gaming, and systems companies active from 1980 through 2012, along with case studies, interviews, and surveys involving senior executives at more than 70 software and online-services companies. Its framework offers historical context, not a current forecast or a universal formula.
| Growth path | What it means | Question to weigh |
|---|---|---|
| New geography or channel | Bring an established offer to more customers or reach them through a different route. | Can the company serve new customers effectively without weakening the offer? |
| Another product market | Apply a successful offer or capability to a different market. | Does the company understand the new customers and their needs well enough? |
| Platform | Develop an offer into a platform that supports broader activity or participation. | Is there a clear reason for customers or partners to adopt the platform? |
These choices are alternatives, not mandatory stages. The wrong move—or a sound move made too early—can undermine growth. The decision should follow evidence about customer demand, the business model, and the team’s ability to execute.
Organize technology work around business value
Technology can be a source of products, but it is also a capability that helps a company operate. In either case, leaders need to connect technical work with business priorities rather than treat it as a separate cost or delivery queue.
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McKinsey’s 2026 Global Tech Agenda reports associations between top performance and closer business–technology collaboration, product and platform operating models, continuous planning, and capability development. The survey covered 632 technology and business leaders across 69 nations and 24 industries, with fieldwork from September 29 to November 10, 2025. In that report, “top performers” were respondents whose organizations reported average revenue and EBIT growth of at least 10 percent over the preceding three years. Those definitions matter: the findings describe survey responses and associations, not proof that any one operating practice caused growth.
A useful operating model gives teams clear responsibility for customer and business outcomes, helps them make decisions with relevant evidence, and allows priorities to change as circumstances do. McKinsey’s analysis of more than 400 publicly traded companies examines operating-model maturity across structure; strategy and governance; ways of working; culture and talent; and tooling. It reports that product-management practices have the greatest impact within “ways of working” on business performance, while tooling and culture-and-talent practices correlate most with innovation performance. That does not establish one operating model as right for every company.
Build the conditions for innovation and learning
Innovation is not simply a matter of buying new technology or asking teams to move faster. It also depends on how a company integrates work across the organization, makes decisions, and responds to what it learns.
In a 2023 survey analysis, McKinsey reported that top innovators said they were ten times faster at developing new products than weak innovators, had a sixfold lead in scaling a new business, and were more than ten times as likely to be overall economic outperformers. These are comparisons reported in survey analysis—not controlled estimates showing that speed or any other single practice caused the outcomes.
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The practical lesson is to create conditions that help useful ideas become products and reach customers. That can include a culture that supports experimentation and learning, operating practices that enable integration and speed, and decisions grounded in facts. Technical investment is more likely to produce business value when it connects to those organizational capabilities.
Make leadership and talent part of the strategy
Technology strategy is a business concern, so technology leaders need a role in shaping business priorities and investment decisions. McKinsey’s 2019 analysis of digital strategy, based on a survey fielded in 2018, describes technology leaders involved in business strategy and investment in digital talent among practices seen at top-performing organizations. The finding is a reported association, not a guarantee that adopting either practice will produce a particular result.
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Talent investment should support the strategy the company has chosen: the skills required to build and improve the product, serve customers, operate reliably, or pursue a new growth path. Leadership also has to connect those skills to priorities, give teams a workable decision-making structure, and adjust plans when evidence changes.
Interpret growth statistics in context
McKinsey’s 2014 historical dataset of roughly 3,000 internet, application, gaming, and systems companies active between 1980 and 2012 found that 28 percent reached $100 million in revenue and 3 percent reached $1 billion. These proportions apply to that defined sample and period. They are not present-day odds for a startup, nor do they cover every kind of technology company.
More broadly, the findings discussed here come from publisher analyses, surveys, and historical company data. Survey results can reveal patterns among respondents, but they do not by themselves establish cause and effect. A company should use them as context for decisions, not as a prediction of its own outcome.
Best Value
- Author: Bungay Stanier, Michael.
- Publisher: Page Two
- Pages: 244
- Publication Date: 2016-02-29
- Edition: 1
Use a practical test before choosing what to do next
Before committing to a growth initiative, assess it against the company’s stage, customers, and ability to deliver:
- Stage: Is the company still proving initial demand, or does it have an established offer to extend?
- Need and market: Is there meaningful customer demand for the proposed offer or expansion?
- Monetization: Is there a credible way to turn adoption into durable revenue and economic value?
- Growth path: Is the best next step expansion by geography or channel, entry into another product market, or a platform strategy?
- Execution capacity: Do leadership, product teams, talent, and operating practices support the choice?
- Evidence: Is the case based on customer behavior and company-specific results, or on a broader survey association or historical comparison?
A strong answer is not necessarily the boldest expansion or the fastest growth target. It is the move that fits the company’s customer need and business model and that its people and operating practices can carry out.
Quick Recap
Sources
- McKinsey & Company, “McKinsey Global Tech Agenda 2026”, February 9, 2026.
- McKinsey & Company, “How innovative companies leverage technology”, December 14, 2023.
- McKinsey & Company, “Sustaining growth in technology companies” / “Grow fast or die slow”, 2014.
- McKinsey & Company, “A winning operating model for digital strategy”, January 23, 2019.
- McKinsey & Company, “The bottom-line benefit of the product operating model”.
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