Competing with Giants: It’s All about Speed

Dominic Orr, Aruba Networks

Dominic Orr, CEO of Aruba Networks, describes how a startup can compete with large, established companies. Orr argues that to compete with large companies an entrepreneurial firm must think about the ecosystem created by the larger companies and then identify the problems in that system that the larger companies are unable to address. Once an opportunity has been identified, a startup’s single advantage is speed: because established firms have different incentives that lead to inertia, large firms are often unable to match the speed and flexibility of a startup.