Reignition: Transforming Stuck Startups into Breakout Winners

A Secret Playbook for Transforming Stuck Startups

It’s common knowledge that nine out of ten startups fail. Even venture capital firms make most of their returns on one out of ten investments. Naturally, founders try to replicate the success of those winners by raising too much, scaling too quickly, and destroying themselves in pursuit of the media-celebrated “unicorn” status. For those that aren’t in that rarified 10% of hyper-growth companies, there is another path.

In Reignition: Transforming Stuck Startups into Breakout Winners, entrepreneur and investor Dave Hersh skillfully outlines how to transform a stuck startup into a lean, disciplined, focused organization with the time, space, and market position to find a breakout move.

Dave’s focus on startup transformation is unique and timely, and in high demand from entrepreneurs worldwide who have gotten stuck by trying to scale prematurely. Drawing on his own experience and stories of successes and failures, Hersh shows how companies can recover from a near-death experience and have a profoundly successful second act. Readers will learn how to shed unnecessary weight, adapt their leadership style, find their “best in the world” offering, optimize culture, and patiently navigate towards success on a larger scale.

This thoughtful, practical, and unique book has a clear message for many audiences—

• Startups and growth companies with from $1M to $100M in revenue that have tasted success but now must transform to survive

• Founders and leaders of healthy, or earlier-stage startups who want to avoid common mistakes around premature scaling

• Acquirers (and hired leaders) of stuck companies

• Investors and stakeholders involved in these companies

In Reignition readers will find—

• A clear and practical playbook for transforming a stuck company

• Stories of successful transformations to learn from

• Interviews with industry experts

• “Hard Lessons” from Dave on his own failures that led to insights

• Encouragement and support for the hard work involved

Readers will gain the confidence to transform their company, the skills to do it, and the reassurance that they are not alone. Hersh’s ability to go deep into the human side of company-building, along with his vulnerability, accessibility, and real-world experience, makes the reader feel like he’s there with them “in the boat” as they go through the difficult journey of rebooting their startup.

Dave Hersh is an entrepreneur, investor, and advisor based in San Francisco with over 30 years of experience in business strategy and startups. His ideas on building lean, profitable, mission-driven businesses have helped hundreds of businesses get unstuck and find their breakaway path. He is currently a general partner at Metamorph Capital, which acquires companies in need of a reboot and transforms them into healthy, sustainable leaders. Dave was the Founding CEO of Jive (NASD: JIVE), which he grew from a small open-source project to its IPO in 2011. He then spent two years as a Board Partner (investor) at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

An entrepreneur, investor, advisor, and humble contrarian, Dave Hersh has spent over three decades building lean, profitable, mission-driven businesses and helping hundreds of others get “unstuck” and find their breakaway path. He is a general partner at Metamorph Partners, which acquires slower-growth, venture-backed companies and transforms them into healthy, sustainable leaders; was the founding CEO of Jive (NASD: JIVE), which he grew from a small open source project up to its IPO; and served as a board partner at the VC firm Andreessen Horowitz.