Hockey-stick growth

How it is used

Used about revenue or user charts in pitch decks and investor talk. Investors love hockey-stick growth, but they are careful with forecasts that show it without evidence. People also say the hockey stick or a hockey-stick curve.

Example sentences

1. After two flat years, the app finally showed hockey-stick growth when schools started using it.

2. Every startup forecast shows hockey-stick growth; investors want to know what will cause it.

Common collocations

• hockey-stick curve
• hockey-stick chart
• show hockey-stick growth

Related terms

• tractionClear evidence that customers want a product, such as growing users, sales, revenue or partnerships, which shows that the startup is moving forward.
• scaleTo grow a business quickly to many more customers, markets or sales without costs and effort growing at the same speed.
• product-market fitThe stage when a product clearly meets a real need in a large enough market, so customers buy it, keep using it and recommend it without much pushing.
• network effectA situation in which a product becomes more valuable to each user as more people use it, as with social networks, payment systems and marketplaces.

More terms: Growth & Traction

• churn
• go-to-market strategy
• growth hacking
• north star metric
• retention