At Stage 2 Capital, we spend our days with founders navigating one of the hardest transitions in company building: the move from early traction to repeatable growth.
This is the stage where companies hire sales leaders, scale marketing beyond founder-led efforts, and feel real pressure to “move faster.” It is also the stage where well-intentioned decisions can quietly compound into costly mistakes.
Over the past several years, one pattern has shown up again and again across our portfolio and the broader startup ecosystem:
Most go-to-market failures are not caused by a lack of ambition. They are caused by scaling before the data supports it.
That insight sits at the core of The Science of Scaling, a forthcoming book by Stage 2 Capital Managing Partner Mark Roberge, founding CRO of HubSpot, and Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School. The book will be released on February 3, 2026, and is now available for pre-order.
Founders rarely decide to scale prematurely. Instead, they are nudged there by signals that feel compelling in the moment:
The problem is that these signals are often external, emotional, or anecdotal. They say very little about whether a company has achieved the internal conditions required for sustainable scaling.
Across hundreds of startups, we have seen the same failure modes repeat:
In almost every case, the root cause is the same: decisions are being made without sufficient instrumentation.
Mark Roberge wrote The Science of Scaling in order to address a simple but persistent gap in startup growth: most founders are asked to make irreversible go-to-market decisions without clear, reliable data.
Rather than offering tactics or platitudes, the book introduces a measurement-driven operating framework that helps founders answer questions like:
This framework did not originate in theory. It emerged from Mark’s experience building HubSpot’s revenue engine from the ground up, his academic research at Harvard Business School, and more than a decade of hands-on work with early-stage companies through Stage 2 Capital.
The audience for The Science of Scaling is not just sales leaders or marketing teams. It is written for founders, CEOs, CMOs, and CROs who are responsible for orchestrating growth across the entire go-to-market system.
Inside the book, readers will find:
The goal is not to slow growth. It is to make growth predictable, capital-efficient, and durable.
Series A and Series B are inflection points. Capital is available. Expectations are high. The margin for error narrows.
At this stage, premature scaling is uniquely dangerous. A few misaligned hires, a poorly timed expansion, or a misread of demand can set a company back quarters—or years.
At Stage 2 Capital, our philosophy has always been that founders deserve more than capital. They deserve access to proven frameworks that reduce uncertainty and increase the odds of success.
The Science of Scaling is an extension of that belief. It is designed to give founders the same decision-making rigor that has guided our investment strategy and advisory work across the portfolio.
Many founders may already be familiar with Mark Roberge’s the Science of Scaling podcast, produced in collaboration with HubSpot. The book builds on those conversations, going deeper into the data, the frameworks, and the practical application.
If the podcast helps founders ask better questions, the book helps to answer them.
The Science of Scaling: Using Data to Decide When—and How Fast—to Scale Revenue will be released on February 3, 2026, and is now available for pre-order.
For founders navigating the complexity of scaling go-to-market, this book is intended to serve as a practical operating manual—one grounded in evidence, not instinct.
Learn more about the methodology and pre-order the book here: https://www.stage2.capital/science-of-scaling-book
Listen to the companion podcast with HubSpot here: https://www.hubspot.com/startups/podcast
Download chapter one here: https://www.stage2.capital/science-of-scaling-book