Synopses & Reviews
"If people aren't calling you crazy, you aren't thinking big enough."
These days taking chances isnt just for college dropouts in hoodies. Whether you work at a Fortune 500 company, a nonprofit, or a mom-and-pop, everybody needs to think and act like an entrepreneur. We all need to be nimble, adaptive, daringand maybe even a little crazyor risk being left behind.
But how do you take smart risks without risking it all? Thats Linda Rottenbergs expertise. As the cofounder and CEO of Endeavor, the worlds leading organization dedicated to supporting fast-growing entrepreneurs, shes spent the last two decades helping innovators think bold and execute smart.
Now Rottenberg draws on her unrivaled experience to show you the proven techniques to achieve your dreams: from overcoming fear to facing down critics, from stalking supporters to exploiting chaos. Crazy Is a Compliment combines inspiring stories, original research, and practical advice to create a road map for getting started and going bigger.
Rottenberg brings to life iconic entrepreneurs like Walt Disney and Estée Lauder and reveals how companies like MTV, GE, and Burberry found their best successes by breaking the corporate mold and embracing the entrepreneur mind-set. She also introduces us to some of the one thousand entrepreneurs shes advised, like Leila Velez, who started a hair-care company in her kitchen sink in Rio that now earns $80 million a year. As Linda writes:
Every day I meet people with a dream. Maybe youre serving coffee and fantasizing about launching a microbrewery; maybe youve skipped college and yearn to start your own design firm; maybe youre sitting in your cubicle and brainstorming a new idea that can improve your company.
You have a dream, but you dont know how to turn your dream into reality. Or youve already launched your dream but youre unsure how to take it to the next level. This book can show you the way.
Review
“Call me crazy, but I think Linda is onto something big here. She delivers powerful insights with her legendary wit and candor to show how everyone can think and act like an entrepreneur.”
—Michael Dell, founder and CEO, Dell Inc.
"For nearly two decades, Linda has been teaching and learning from the boldest entrepreneurs around the world. In this terrific book, she shares what it takes to master the chaos of starting your own business -- or simply to grow your own career in today's fast-changing world of work."
—Reid Hoffman, co-founder/chairman of LinkedIn and co-author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller The Start-Up of You
"Crazy is what they call people who don't fit in. And we need a lot more crazy like Linda is crazy. She is generous, curious, connected and driven to make a difference in the world. And this book captures all of that and more. Buy it, read it, live it."
—Seth Godin, author of Linchpin
“Crazy Is a Compliment is a treasure trove.. Linda Rottenberg is an extraordinary entrepreneur who has guided many of the worlds greatest entrepreneurs, and she offers invaluable insights—not only for start-ups, but also for companies, nonprofits, governments, and schools. If you have an idea or want to innovate, I highly recommend devouring this book.”
—Adam Grant, professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and author of Give and Take
“Linda has tapped into something important—that we all need to be more entrepreneurial these days. With her impressive track record and inspiring story, she shows us all how to overcome our fears and take smart, achievable steps to improve our organizations.”
—Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and founder of LeanIn.Org
"Rottenbergs energy is contagious, and the chatty, conversational presentation is designed to get readers moving. This is a great guide for those with more dreams than courage."
—Publisher's Weekly
Synopsis
Most startups fail. But those failures, says entrepreneur Eric Ries, are preventable. New ventures, from the garage to those within Fortune 500 companies, are designed to create innovative products or services that have never existed before. When these startups fail, it is usually not because they didn’t execute well enough—on the contrary, they “achieved failure” by building the wrong things very efficiently. Startups cannot use traditional planning and management tools, because their product and customers are unknown. The primary mission of entrepreneurs is to penetrate the uncertainty about what customers will ultimately embrace, and discover a path to a successful business.
The Lean Startup methodology offers a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups. It relies on what Ries calls “validated learning” to build a sustainable business. It is a way of getting continuous feedback so that a company can decide whether or not to persevere in their vision, or pivot and shift directions. It allows entrepreneurs a way to adapt their plans incrementally, inch by inch, minute by minute. In other words, rather than creating an elaborate business plan, The Lean Startup offers a way to test your vision continuously, so that you can innovate and adjust while you still have time to do so.
Synopsis
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.
Synopsis
Stories, inspiration, and practical advice on how entrepreneurs can grow their companies rapidly without sacrificing their ethics (or Mother Earth), from the founders of Yes To, the #2 natural beauty brand in the U.S. after only a few short years.
Synopsis
Get Big Fast and Do More Good is a guide to modern entrepreneurship and accelerated brand-building from the founders of Yes To Inc, the company behind the breakthrough natural beauty brand Yes to Carrots.
and#160;
Ido Leffler and Lance Kalish, two 29-year-old Australians with very different backandshy;grounds and skills, cofounded their company in 2006 with little more than a dreamand#8212;and made it big. Yes to Carrots has become one of the biggest natural beauty brands in the world and is one of the fastest-growing skincare brands. Leffler and Kalish have accomandshy;plished it all while maintaining solid principles, investing in meaningful business relationandshy;ships, giving back to the community, and still making it home in time for dinner.
and#160;
The authors started their business with nothing but chutzpah and great instincts for products with potential. Theyand#8217;ve since made lots of great decisions and some really, really bad ones, and are ready to share their hard-won secret to success: a strong, resilient, trustandshy;ing partnership coupled with a great sense of humor.
About the Author
ERIC RIES is an entrepreneur and author of the popular blog Startup Lessons Learned. He co-founded and served as CTO of IMVU, his third startup, and has had plenty of startup failures along the way. He is a frequent speaker at business events, has advised a number of startups, large companies, and venture capital firms on business and product strategy, and is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Harvard Business School. His Lean Startup methodology has been written about in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review, the Huffington Post, and many blogs. He lives in San Francisco.
Table of Contents
Introductionand#8194;viiand#160;and#160; 1.and#160;And in the Beginning .and#160;.and#160;.and#8194;1
and#160;and#160; 2.and#160;Time to Rideand#8194;31
and#160;and#160; 3.and#160;The Secret Formulaand#8194;41
and#160;and#160; 4.and#160;Partnershipand#8194;57
and#160;and#160; 5.and#160;Yes Who?and#8194;73
and#160;and#160; 6.and#160;Catching Your Waveand#8194;85
and#160;and#160; 7.and#160;The Investor Dating Gameand#8194;127
and#160;and#160; 8.and#160;The Nuts and Bolts of Getting People to Careand#8194;135
and#160;and#160; 9.and#160;The Most Screwed-up Screw-upand#8194;155
and#160;and#160; 10.and#160;Putting It All Togetherand#8194;163
and#160;and#160; 11.and#160;The Letting Go Chapterand#8194;183
Conclusion: Riding the Momentumand#8194;203
Acknowledgmentsand#8194;205
Indexand#8194;207