Creating a great technology company involves much more than
building a great product or service. Much of your success will depend on your
business model, influencing customers, overcoming obstacles, employing social
media, scaling, leveraging a worldwide workforce, and much more. This curated reading
list consists of books we have recommended to clients and ones clients have
recommended to us. They will inform, energize and inspire you while improving
the odds of you building a successful company.
Crossing the Chasm, 3rd Edition: Marketing and Selling Disruptive
Products to Mainstream Customers
The bible for bringing
cutting-edge products to larger markets--now revised and updated with new
insights into the realities of high-tech marketing. In Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey A. Moore shows
that in the Technology Adoption Life Cycle--which begins with innovators and
moves to early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards--there is
a vast chasm between the early adopters and the early majority. While early
adopters are willing to sacrifice for the advantage of being first, the early
majority waits until they know that the technology actually offers improvements
in productivity. The challenge for innovators and marketers is to narrow this
chasm and ultimately accelerate adoption across every segment.
Blue
Ocean Strategy, Expanded Edition: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make
the Competition Irrelevant
The global phenomenon that has sold 3.5
million copies, is published in a record-breaking 43 languages and is a
bestseller across five continents—now updated and expanded with new content. This
global bestseller, embraced by organizations and industries worldwide,
challenges everything you thought you knew about the requirements for strategic
success. Now updated with fresh content from the authors, Blue Ocean Strategy argues that
cutthroat competition results in nothing but a bloody red ocean of rivals
fighting over a shrinking profit pool. Based on a study of 150 strategic moves
(spanning more than 100 years across 30 industries), the authors argue that
lasting success comes not from battling competitors but from creating “blue
oceans”—untapped new market spaces ripe for growth.
Blue Ocean Strategy presents a systematic approach to making the competition irrelevant and outlines principles and tools any organization can use to create and capture their own blue oceans.
Blue Ocean Strategy presents a systematic approach to making the competition irrelevant and outlines principles and tools any organization can use to create and capture their own blue oceans.
David
and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants
Malcolm Gladwell,
the #1 bestselling author of The
Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, and What the Dog Saw, offers his most provocative---and
dazzling---book yet.
Three thousand years
ago on a battlefield in ancient Palestine, a shepherd boy felled a mighty
warrior with nothing more than a stone and a sling, and ever since then the
names of David and Goliath have stood for battles between underdogs and giants.
David's victory was improbable and miraculous. He shouldn't have won. Or should he have?
In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell challenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, offering a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, or cope with a disability, or lose a parent, or attend a mediocre school, or suffer from any number of other apparent setbacks.
Gladwell begins with the real story of what happened between the giant and the shepherd boy those many years ago. From there, David and Goliath examines Northern Ireland's Troubles, the minds of cancer researchers and civil rights leaders, murder and the high costs of revenge, and the dynamics of successful and unsuccessful classrooms---all to demonstrate how much of what is beautiful and important in the world arises from what looks like suffering and adversity.
In the tradition of Gladwell's previous bestsellers---The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers and What the Dog Saw---David and Goliath draws upon history, psychology, and powerful storytelling to reshape the way we think of the world around us.
In David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell challenges how we think about obstacles and disadvantages, offering a new interpretation of what it means to be discriminated against, or cope with a disability, or lose a parent, or attend a mediocre school, or suffer from any number of other apparent setbacks.
Gladwell begins with the real story of what happened between the giant and the shepherd boy those many years ago. From there, David and Goliath examines Northern Ireland's Troubles, the minds of cancer researchers and civil rights leaders, murder and the high costs of revenge, and the dynamics of successful and unsuccessful classrooms---all to demonstrate how much of what is beautiful and important in the world arises from what looks like suffering and adversity.
In the tradition of Gladwell's previous bestsellers---The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers and What the Dog Saw---David and Goliath draws upon history, psychology, and powerful storytelling to reshape the way we think of the world around us.
Abundance: The
Future Is Better Than You Think Providing
abundance is humanity’s grandest challenge—this is a book about how we rise to
meet it.
We will soon be able
to meet and exceed the basic needs of every man, woman and child on the planet.
Abundance for all is within our grasp. This bold, contrarian view, backed up by
exhaustive research, introduces our near-term future, where exponentially
growing technologies and three other powerful forces are conspiring to better
the lives of billions. An antidote to pessimism by tech entrepreneur turned
philanthropist, Peter H. Diamandis and award-winning science writer Steven
Kotler.
Since the dawn of humanity, a privileged few have lived in stark contrast to the hardscrabble majority. Conventional wisdom says this gap cannot be closed. But it is closing—fast. The authors document how four forces—exponential technologies, the DIY innovator, the Technophilanthropist, and the Rising Billion—are conspiring to solve our biggest problems. Abundance establishes hard targets for change and lays out a strategic roadmap for governments, industry and entrepreneurs, giving us plenty of reason for optimism.
Examining human need by category—water, food, energy, healthcare, education, freedom—Diamandis and Kotler introduce dozens of innovators making great strides in each area: Larry Page, Steven Hawking, Dean Kamen, Daniel Kahneman, Elon Musk, Bill Joy.
Since the dawn of humanity, a privileged few have lived in stark contrast to the hardscrabble majority. Conventional wisdom says this gap cannot be closed. But it is closing—fast. The authors document how four forces—exponential technologies, the DIY innovator, the Technophilanthropist, and the Rising Billion—are conspiring to solve our biggest problems. Abundance establishes hard targets for change and lays out a strategic roadmap for governments, industry and entrepreneurs, giving us plenty of reason for optimism.
Examining human need by category—water, food, energy, healthcare, education, freedom—Diamandis and Kotler introduce dozens of innovators making great strides in each area: Larry Page, Steven Hawking, Dean Kamen, Daniel Kahneman, Elon Musk, Bill Joy.
Platform
Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming the Economy--and How to Make
Them Work for You
A practical guide to
the new economy that is transforming the way we live, work, and play.
Uber. Airbnb. Amazon.
Apple. PayPal. All of these companies disrupted their markets when they
launched. Today they are industry leaders. What’s the secret to their success?
These cutting-edge
businesses are built on platforms: two-sided markets that are revolutionizing
the way we do business. Written by three of the most sought-after experts on
platform businesses, Platform Revolution is
the first authoritative, fact-based book on platform models. Whether platforms
are connecting sellers and buyers, hosts and visitors, or drivers with people
who need a ride, Geoffrey G. Parker, Marshall W. Van Alstyne, and Sangeet Paul
Choudary reveal the what, how, and why of this revolution and provide the first “owner’s
manual” for creating a successful platform business.
Platform Revolution teaches newcomers how to start and run a successful platform
business, explaining ways to identify prime markets and monetize networks.
Addressing current business leaders, the authors reveal strategies behind some
of today’s up-and-coming platforms, such as Tinder and SkillShare, and explain
how traditional companies can adapt in a changing marketplace. The authors also
cover essential issues concerning security, regulation, and consumer trust,
while examining markets that may be ripe for a platform revolution, including
healthcare, education, and energy.
As digital networks
increase in ubiquity, businesses that do a better job of harnessing the power
of the platform will win. An indispensable guide, Platform Revolution charts out the brilliant future of
platforms and reveals how they will irrevocably alter the lives and careers of
millions.
Virtual
Freedom: How to Work with Virtual Staff to Buy More Time, Become More
Productive, and Build Your Dream Business
Entrepreneurs often
suffer from ”superhero syndrome”—the misconception that to be successful, they
must do everything themselves. Not only are they the boss, but also the
salesperson, HR manager, copywriter, operations manager, online marketing guru,
and so much more. It’s no wonder why so many people give up the dream of
starting a business—it’s just too much for one person to handle.
But outsourcing expert and ”Virtual CEO,” Chris Ducker knows how you can get the help you need with resources you can afford. Small business owners, consultants, and online entrepreneurs don’t have to go it alone when they discover the power of building teams of virtual employees to help run, support, and grow their businesses.
Virtual Freedom: How to Work with Virtual Staff to Buy More Time, Become More Productive, and Build Your Dream Business is the step-by-step guide every entrepreneur needs to build his or her business with the asset of working with virtual employees. Focusing on business growth, Ducker explains every detail you need to grasp, from figuring out which jobs you should outsource to finding, hiring, training, motivating, and managing virtual assistants.
With additional tactics and online resources, Virtual Freedom is the ultimate resource of the knowledge and tools necessary for building your dream business with the help of virtual staff.
But outsourcing expert and ”Virtual CEO,” Chris Ducker knows how you can get the help you need with resources you can afford. Small business owners, consultants, and online entrepreneurs don’t have to go it alone when they discover the power of building teams of virtual employees to help run, support, and grow their businesses.
Virtual Freedom: How to Work with Virtual Staff to Buy More Time, Become More Productive, and Build Your Dream Business is the step-by-step guide every entrepreneur needs to build his or her business with the asset of working with virtual employees. Focusing on business growth, Ducker explains every detail you need to grasp, from figuring out which jobs you should outsource to finding, hiring, training, motivating, and managing virtual assistants.
With additional tactics and online resources, Virtual Freedom is the ultimate resource of the knowledge and tools necessary for building your dream business with the help of virtual staff.
Built
to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You
According to John Warrillow, the number one
mistake entrepreneurs make is to build a
business that relies too heavily on them. Thus, when the time comes to sell,
buyers aren't confident that the company-even if it's profitable-can stand on
its own. To illustrate this, Warrillow introduces us to a fictional small
business owner named Alex who is struggling to sell his advertising agency.
Alex turns to Ted, an entrepreneur and old family friend, who encourages Alex
to pursue three criteria to make his business sellable: * Teachable: focus on
products and services that you can teach employees to deliver. * Valuable:
avoid price wars by specializing in doing one thing better than anyone else. *
Repeatable: generate recurring revenue by engineering products that customers
have to repurchase often.
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small
Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
An instant classic,
this revised and updated edition of the phenomenal bestseller dispels the myths
about starting your own business. Small business consultant and author Michael
E. Gerber, with sharp insight gained from years of experience, points out how
common assumptions, expectations, and even technical expertise can get in the
way of running a successful business.
Gerber walks you
through the steps in the life of a business—from entrepreneurial infancy
through adolescent growing pains to the mature entrepreneurial perspective: the
guiding light of all businesses that succeed—and shows how to apply the lessons
of franchising to any business, whether or not it is a franchise. Most
importantly, Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between
working on your business and working in your business.
The E-Myth Revisited will help you grow your business in a productive, assured way.
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
If you want to build
a better future, you must believe in secrets.
The great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to explore and new inventions to create. In Zero to One, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things.
Thiel begins with the contrarian premise that we live in an age of technological stagnation, even if we’re too distracted by shiny mobile devices to notice. Information technology has improved rapidly, but there is no reason why progress should be limited to computers or Silicon Valley. Progress can be achieved in any industry or area of business. It comes from the most important skill that every leader must master: learning to think for yourself.
Doing what someone else already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. Tomorrow’s champions will not win by competing ruthlessly in today’s marketplace. They will escape competition altogether, because their businesses will be unique.
Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places.
The great secret of our time is that there are still uncharted frontiers to explore and new inventions to create. In Zero to One, legendary entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel shows how we can find singular ways to create those new things.
Thiel begins with the contrarian premise that we live in an age of technological stagnation, even if we’re too distracted by shiny mobile devices to notice. Information technology has improved rapidly, but there is no reason why progress should be limited to computers or Silicon Valley. Progress can be achieved in any industry or area of business. It comes from the most important skill that every leader must master: learning to think for yourself.
Doing what someone else already knows how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But when you do something new, you go from 0 to 1. The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. Tomorrow’s champions will not win by competing ruthlessly in today’s marketplace. They will escape competition altogether, because their businesses will be unique.
Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places.
Exponential Organizations: Why new
organizations are ten times better, faster, and cheaper than yours (and what to
do about it)
Frost & Sullivan’s
2014 Growth, Innovation, and Leadership Book of the Year
In business, performance is key. In performance, how you organize can be the key to growth.
In the past five years, the business world has seen the birth of a new breed of company—the Exponential Organization—that has revolutionized how a company can accelerate its growth by using technology. An ExO can eliminate the incremental, linear way traditional companies get bigger, leveraging assets like community, big data, algorithms, and new technology into achieving performance benchmarks ten times better than its peers.
Three luminaries of the business world—Salim Ismail, Yuri van Geest, and Mike Malone—have researched this phenomenon and documented ten characteristics of Exponential Organizations. Here, in EXPONENTIAL ORGANIZATIONS, they walk the reader through how any company, from a startup to a multi-national, can become an ExO, streamline its performance, and grow to the next level.
“EXPONENTIAL ORGANIZATIONS is the most pivotal book in its class. Salim examines the future of organizations and offers readers his insights on the concept of Exponential Organizations, because he himself embodies the strategy, structure, culture, processes, and systems of this new breed of company.”—John Hagel, The Center for the Edge
Chosen by Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, to be one of Bloomberg's Best Books of 2015
In business, performance is key. In performance, how you organize can be the key to growth.
In the past five years, the business world has seen the birth of a new breed of company—the Exponential Organization—that has revolutionized how a company can accelerate its growth by using technology. An ExO can eliminate the incremental, linear way traditional companies get bigger, leveraging assets like community, big data, algorithms, and new technology into achieving performance benchmarks ten times better than its peers.
Three luminaries of the business world—Salim Ismail, Yuri van Geest, and Mike Malone—have researched this phenomenon and documented ten characteristics of Exponential Organizations. Here, in EXPONENTIAL ORGANIZATIONS, they walk the reader through how any company, from a startup to a multi-national, can become an ExO, streamline its performance, and grow to the next level.
“EXPONENTIAL ORGANIZATIONS is the most pivotal book in its class. Salim examines the future of organizations and offers readers his insights on the concept of Exponential Organizations, because he himself embodies the strategy, structure, culture, processes, and systems of this new breed of company.”—John Hagel, The Center for the Edge
Chosen by Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, to be one of Bloomberg's Best Books of 2015
The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated
Forget the old concept
of retirement and the rest of the deferred-life plan–there is no need to wait
and every reason not to, especially in unpredictable economic times. Whether
your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel,
earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management, or just living more
and working less, The 4-Hour
Workweek is the blueprint.
This step-by-step guide to luxury lifestyle design teaches:
•How Tim went from $40,000 per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per month and 4 hours per week
•How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want
•How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs
•How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist
•How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and frequent “mini-retirements”
This step-by-step guide to luxury lifestyle design teaches:
•How Tim went from $40,000 per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per month and 4 hours per week
•How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want
•How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs
•How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist
•How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and frequent “mini-retirements”
Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer on the
Future of PR, Marketing, and Advertising
A Primer on the
Future of PR, Marketing and Advertising
A new generation of megabrands like Facebook, Dropbox, Airbnb, and Twitter haven’t spent a dime on traditional marketing. No press releases, no TV commercials, no billboards. Instead, they rely on a new strategy—growth hacking—to reach many more people despite modest marketing budgets. Growth hackers have thrown out the old playbook and replaced it with tools that are testable, trackable, and scalable. They believe that products and businesses should be modified repeatedly until they’re primed to generate explosive reactions.
Bestselling author Ryan Holiday, the acclaimed marketing guru for American Apparel and many bestselling authors and multiplatinum musicians, explains the new rules and provides valuable examples and case studies for aspiring growth hackers. Whether you work for a tiny start-up or a Fortune 500 giant, if you’re responsible for building awareness and buzz for a product or service, this is your road map.
A new generation of megabrands like Facebook, Dropbox, Airbnb, and Twitter haven’t spent a dime on traditional marketing. No press releases, no TV commercials, no billboards. Instead, they rely on a new strategy—growth hacking—to reach many more people despite modest marketing budgets. Growth hackers have thrown out the old playbook and replaced it with tools that are testable, trackable, and scalable. They believe that products and businesses should be modified repeatedly until they’re primed to generate explosive reactions.
Bestselling author Ryan Holiday, the acclaimed marketing guru for American Apparel and many bestselling authors and multiplatinum musicians, explains the new rules and provides valuable examples and case studies for aspiring growth hackers. Whether you work for a tiny start-up or a Fortune 500 giant, if you’re responsible for building awareness and buzz for a product or service, this is your road map.
The New Strategic Selling: The Unique Sales
System Proven Successful by the World's Best Companies
The Book that Sparked
A Selling Revolution In 1985 one book changed sales and marketing forever.
Rejecting manipulative tactics and emphasizing "process," Strategic
Selling presented the idea of selling as a joint venture and introduced the
decade's most influential concept, Win-Win. The response to Win-Win was
immediate. And it helped turn the small company that created Strategic Selling,
Miller Heiman, into a global leader in sales development with the most
prestigious client list and sought-after workshops in the industry. Now
Strategic Selling has been updated and revised for a new century of sales
success. The New Strategic Selling This new edition of the business classic
confronts the rapidly evolving world of business-to-business sales with new
real-world examples, new strategies for confronting competition, and a special
section featuring the most commonly asked questions from the Miller Heiman
workshops. Learn: * How to identify the four real decision makers in every
corporate labyrinth * How to prevent sabotage by an internal deal-killer * How
to make a senior executive eager to see you * How to avoid closing business
that you'll later regret * How to manage a territory to provide steady, not
"boom and bust," revenue * How to avoid the single most common error
when dealing with the competition.
How to Win Friends & Influence People
Millions of people
around the world have - and continue to - improve their lives based on the
teachings of Dale Carnegie. In "How to Win Friends and Influence
People" Carnegie offers practical advice and techniques, in his exuberant
and conversational style, for how to get out of a mental rut and make life more
rewarding. His advice has stood the test of time and will teach you how to:
make friends quickly and easily; increase your popularity; win people to your
way of thinking; enable you to win new clients and customers; become a better
speaker and a more entertaining conversationalist; and, arouse enthusiasm among
your colleagues. This book will turn around your relationships and improve your
dealings with all the people in your life.
The
Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph
The Obstacle is the Way has
become a cult classic, beloved by men and women around the world who apply its
wisdom to become more successful at whatever they do.
Its many fans include a former governor and movie star (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a hip hop icon (LL Cool J), an Irish tennis pro (James McGee), an NBC sportscaster (Michele Tafoya), and the coaches and players of winning teams like the New England Patriots, Seattle Seahawks, Chicago Cubs, and University of Texas men’s basketball team.
The book draws its inspiration from stoicism, the ancient Greek philosophy of enduring pain or adversity with perseverance and resilience. Stoics focus on the things they can control, let go of everything else, and turn every new obstacle into an opportunity to get better, stronger, tougher. As Marcus Aurelius put it nearly 2000 years ago: “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
Ryan Holiday shows us how some of the most successful people in history—from John D. Rockefeller to Amelia Earhart to Ulysses S. Grant to Steve Jobs—have applied stoicism to overcome difficult or even impossible situations. Their embrace of these principles ultimately mattered more than their natural intelligence, talents, or luck.
If you’re feeling frustrated, demoralized, or stuck in a rut, this book can help you turn your problems into your biggest advantages. And along the way it will inspire you with dozens of true stories of the greats from every age and era.
Its many fans include a former governor and movie star (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a hip hop icon (LL Cool J), an Irish tennis pro (James McGee), an NBC sportscaster (Michele Tafoya), and the coaches and players of winning teams like the New England Patriots, Seattle Seahawks, Chicago Cubs, and University of Texas men’s basketball team.
The book draws its inspiration from stoicism, the ancient Greek philosophy of enduring pain or adversity with perseverance and resilience. Stoics focus on the things they can control, let go of everything else, and turn every new obstacle into an opportunity to get better, stronger, tougher. As Marcus Aurelius put it nearly 2000 years ago: “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
Ryan Holiday shows us how some of the most successful people in history—from John D. Rockefeller to Amelia Earhart to Ulysses S. Grant to Steve Jobs—have applied stoicism to overcome difficult or even impossible situations. Their embrace of these principles ultimately mattered more than their natural intelligence, talents, or luck.
If you’re feeling frustrated, demoralized, or stuck in a rut, this book can help you turn your problems into your biggest advantages. And along the way it will inspire you with dozens of true stories of the greats from every age and era.
The
Wisdom of Crowds
In this fascinating
book, New Yorker business columnist James Surowiecki explores a deceptively
simple idea: Large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter
how brilliant–better at solving problems, fostering innovation, coming to wise
decisions, even predicting the future. With boundless erudition and in
delightfully clear prose, Surowiecki ranges across fields as diverse as popular
culture, psychology, ant biology, behavioral economics, artificial
intelligence, military history, and politics to show how this simple idea offers
important lessons for how we live our lives, select our leaders, run our
companies, and think about our world.
Originals:
How Non-Conformists Move the World
The #1 New York Times bestseller that
examines how people can champion new ideas—and how leaders can fight
groupthink, from the author of Give
and Take
“Reading Originals made me feel like I was seated across from Adam Grant at a dinner party, as one of my favorite thinkers thrilled me with his insights and his wonderfully new take on the world.” —Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers and The Tipping Point
“Originals is one of the most important and captivating books I have ever read, full of surprising and powerful ideas. It will not only change the way you see the world; it might just change the way you live your life. And it could very well inspire you to change your world.” —Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and author of Lean In
With Give and Take, Adam Grant not only introduced a landmark new paradigm for success but also established himself as one of his generation’s most compelling and provocative thought leaders. In Originals he again addresses the challenge of improving the world, but now from the perspective of becoming original: choosing to champion novel ideas and values that go against the grain, battle conformity, and buck outdated traditions. How can we originate new ideas, policies, and practices without risking it all?
“Reading Originals made me feel like I was seated across from Adam Grant at a dinner party, as one of my favorite thinkers thrilled me with his insights and his wonderfully new take on the world.” —Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers and The Tipping Point
“Originals is one of the most important and captivating books I have ever read, full of surprising and powerful ideas. It will not only change the way you see the world; it might just change the way you live your life. And it could very well inspire you to change your world.” —Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and author of Lean In
With Give and Take, Adam Grant not only introduced a landmark new paradigm for success but also established himself as one of his generation’s most compelling and provocative thought leaders. In Originals he again addresses the challenge of improving the world, but now from the perspective of becoming original: choosing to champion novel ideas and values that go against the grain, battle conformity, and buck outdated traditions. How can we originate new ideas, policies, and practices without risking it all?
The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs
Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses
Most startups fail.
But many of those failures are preventable. The Lean Startup is a new
approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built
and new products are launched.
Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business.
The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning,” rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute.
Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs - in companies of all sizes - a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it’s too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever.
Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business.
The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively. Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning,” rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute.
Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs - in companies of all sizes - a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it’s too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever.
Adapt:
Why Success Always Starts with Failure
In this groundbreaking
book, Tim Harford, the Undercover Economist, shows us a new and inspiring
approach to solving the most pressing problems in our lives. When faced with
complex situations, we have all become accustomed to looking to our leaders to
set out a plan of action and blaze a path to success. Harford argues that
today's challenges simply cannot be tackled with ready-made solutions and
expert opinion; the world has become far too unpredictable and profoundly
complex. Instead, we must adapt.
Deftly weaving
together psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, physics, and
economics, along with the compelling story of hard-won lessons learned in the
field, Harford makes a passionate case for the importance of adaptive trial and
error in tackling issues such as climate change, poverty, and financial
crises—as well as in fostering innovation and creativity in our business and
personal lives.
Taking us from
corporate boardrooms to the deserts of Iraq, Adapt clearly explains the necessary ingredients for
turning failure into success. It is a breakthrough handbook for surviving—and
prospering— in our complex and ever-shifting world.
The
Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's Strategies for Defeating the Devil's Advocate
and Driving Creativity Throughout Your Organization
The author of the
bestselling The Art of
Innovation reveals the strategies IDEO, the world-famous design
firm, uses to foster innovative thinking throughout an organization and
overcome the naysayers who stifle creativity.
The role of the devil's advocate is nearly universal in business today. It allows individuals to step outside themselves and raise questions and concerns that effectively kill new projects and ideas, while claiming no personal responsibility. Nothing is more potent in stifling innovation.
Drawing on nearly 20 years of experience managing IDEO, Kelley identifies ten roles people can play in an organization to foster innovation and new ideas while offering an effective counter to naysayers. Among these approaches are the Anthropologist—the person who goes into the field to see how customers use and respond to products, to come up with new innovations; the Cross-pollinator who mixes and matches ideas, people, and technology to create new ideas that can drive growth; and the Hurdler, who instantly looks for ways to overcome the limits and challenges to any situation.
Filled with engaging stories of how companies like Kraft, Procter and Gamble, Cargill and Samsung have incorporated IDEO's thinking to transform the customer experience, THE TEN FACES OF INNOVATION is an extraordinary guide to nurturing and sustaining a culture of continuous innovation and renewal.
The role of the devil's advocate is nearly universal in business today. It allows individuals to step outside themselves and raise questions and concerns that effectively kill new projects and ideas, while claiming no personal responsibility. Nothing is more potent in stifling innovation.
Drawing on nearly 20 years of experience managing IDEO, Kelley identifies ten roles people can play in an organization to foster innovation and new ideas while offering an effective counter to naysayers. Among these approaches are the Anthropologist—the person who goes into the field to see how customers use and respond to products, to come up with new innovations; the Cross-pollinator who mixes and matches ideas, people, and technology to create new ideas that can drive growth; and the Hurdler, who instantly looks for ways to overcome the limits and challenges to any situation.
Filled with engaging stories of how companies like Kraft, Procter and Gamble, Cargill and Samsung have incorporated IDEO's thinking to transform the customer experience, THE TEN FACES OF INNOVATION is an extraordinary guide to nurturing and sustaining a culture of continuous innovation and renewal.
Selling your Software
Company - An Insider's Guide to Achieving Strategic Value How the Merger and
Acquisition Process Really Works and What You Can Do To Win
Selling your technology company for
strategic value involves far more than creating a great technology, product, or
service. Much of your success will depend on your business model and important
value drivers such as contractually recurring revenue and network effects. The
most important factor is the process you employ when you sell your company. The
greater your company's reliance on the leverage of technology, the greater the
room for the market to interpret its selling price.
We explore all aspects
of the M&A process, from the planning and marketing to the Letter of
Intent, due diligence, and closing, and everything in between. We discuss
topics like the subtle language that buyers use in LOI's that can cost sellers
huge swings in value at closing; optimal transaction structures, avoiding
punishing net working capital adjustments, negotiating tactics, and much more.
This book is a must read for the tech entrepreneur contemplating the sale of
their business.
In order to maximize your
company's value you must fully engage the competitive marketplace. We have see
seen swings in the value of technology companies of millions of dollars between
an unsolicited offer for a small software company by a Private Equity Group and
the ultimate purchase transaction from a strategic industry player. That
staggering result is the difference from
selling at a cash flow multiple and selling for strategic value in a
competitive soft auction.
The greater the
complexity of the process, the greater the advantage to the one with
experience. Just ask a rookie quarterback in his first NFL start. Selling a
business is a highly complex process and the business seller is usually in
their first transaction while the typical buyer has made dozens of prior acquisitions.
This book attempts to level the playing field by sharing the author's seventeen
years of deal making experience representing technology focused sellers of
businesses.
Dave Kauppi is a Merger and Acquisition Advisor and President of MidMarket Capital, providing business broker and investment banking services to owners in the sale of information technology, software, and other technology based companies. Dave is also the editor of the Exit Strategist Newsletter and author of the Book Selling your Software Company - An Insider's Guide to Achieving Strategic Value
