LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman shares his secret for fast growth and getting ahead of the competition

• Startups can be just as risky as they are promising - 20% of small businesses fail in just their first year.
• But Reid Hoffman, venture capitalist and co-founder of LinkedIn, has a method for success that bucks tradition.
• "Blitzscaling," as Hoffman calls it in his new book, means prioritizing speed over efficiency in the face of uncertainty.
• The method requires taking risks in a "do-or-die" environment, but promises competitive advantage.

Startups carry unavoidable risk - small businesses have a 20% chance of failing in their first year, and a 50% chance after five years.

The idyllic story of a Silicon Valley startup - beginning with just a few employees in a garage and consistently scaling over time until it's a major company with hundreds of workers - is the anomaly, not the prototype. Most businesses don't experience the same trajectory, and a startup with a solid foundation won't always scale to become a force among its competitors. Some may have ups and downs, while others see slow, steady growth over a longer period of time.

Reid Hoffman, venture capitalist and co-founder of LinkedIn, understands how to achieve the kind of hypergrowth needed to survive in a world of companies like Amazon and Google. His new book, "Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies," focuses on the strategies and techniques that companies like these use to grow rapidly and stay ahead in their industries.

He sent Business Insider a presentation explaining how startups can use what he calls "blitzscaling" - prioritizing speed over efficiency - to grow quickly when faced with an uncertain future, and beat out the competition to take over the market.