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business that never fail: Why Startups Fail Tom Eisenmann, 2021-03-30 If you want your startup to succeed, you need to understand why startups fail. “Whether you’re a first-time founder or looking to bring innovation into a corporate environment, Why Startups Fail is essential reading.”—Eric Ries, founder and CEO, LTSE, and New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup and The Startup Way Why do startups fail? That question caught Harvard Business School professor Tom Eisenmann by surprise when he realized he couldn’t answer it. So he launched a multiyear research project to find out. In Why Startups Fail, Eisenmann reveals his findings: six distinct patterns that account for the vast majority of startup failures. • Bad Bedfellows. Startup success is thought to rest largely on the founder’s talents and instincts. But the wrong team, investors, or partners can sink a venture just as quickly. • False Starts. In following the oft-cited advice to “fail fast” and to “launch before you’re ready,” founders risk wasting time and capital on the wrong solutions. • False Promises. Success with early adopters can be misleading and give founders unwarranted confidence to expand. • Speed Traps. Despite the pressure to “get big fast,” hypergrowth can spell disaster for even the most promising ventures. • Help Wanted. Rapidly scaling startups need lots of capital and talent, but they can make mistakes that leave them suddenly in short supply of both. • Cascading Miracles. Silicon Valley exhorts entrepreneurs to dream big. But the bigger the vision, the more things that can go wrong. Drawing on fascinating stories of ventures that failed to fulfill their early promise—from a home-furnishings retailer to a concierge dog-walking service, from a dating app to the inventor of a sophisticated social robot, from a fashion brand to a startup deploying a vast network of charging stations for electric vehicles—Eisenmann offers frameworks for detecting when a venture is vulnerable to these patterns, along with a wealth of strategies and tactics for avoiding them. A must-read for founders at any stage of their entrepreneurial journey, Why Startups Fail is not merely a guide to preventing failure but also a roadmap charting the path to startup success. |
business that never fail: No Man's Land Doug Tatum, 2007-09-13 If starting a company is difficult, leading a company once the business has caught fire is infinitely more so. Thousands of startups each year approach the dangerous transition that Doug Tatum calls No Man's Land—when they are too big too be considered small but still too small to be considered big. Rapid growth is every entrepreneur's dream, but it never comes easily and is usually rife with dilemmas. Such growth should spark self-discovery, acquired discipline, and positive but difficult transition. Unfortunately, it often becomes an agonizng battle between the tendencies of a lonely entrepreneur and certain immutable laws of growth. The result is confusion, frustration, stagnation, loss of employee morale, and, at worst, financial failure. The good news is that Doug Tatum knows exactly what it takes to get through No Man's Land: a map, a high place from which to orient yourself, and navigational rules to help you track your progress. Through case studies and stories of successes and failures, No Man's Land will help you learn how to: • Align your growing company with its market. • Execute the necessary changes in your management. • Confirm that your financial model is scalable. • Attract money and make smart decisions about financing your business. If you're an entrepreneur, this book will help you make your company all it can be and all you want it to be. |
business that never fail: Why Companies Fail Mark Ingebretsen, 2003 At the height of the global bull market a few years ago, business giant Kmart stumbled, going from one of the most admired companies to one of the largest bankruptcies in history. The same fate befell several seemingly impenetrable corporation, such as Enron, WorldCom, Polaroid, and others. Were these fantastic failures caused by a fickle stock market and a turbulent economy? Did they fall victim to the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s? Not according to business journalist Mark Ingebretsen in Why Companies Fail. As you'll discover in this groundbreaking book, all of these companies exhibited one or more of the ten characteristics of a doomed company--characteristics that have been shared by failed companies for decades. Kmart, Enron, WorldCom, and other corporations might have been saved if their executives had recognized sooner that their companies were exhibiting one or more of these characteristics. Ingebretsen, with the help of some of the world's most noted business management experts from the Turnaround Management Association, describes in startling detail each of the ten big reasons companies fail, including: - Letting stock price dictate strategy - Ignoring customers - Fighting wars of attrition - Innovating too much or too little - And more Inside these pages, you'll discover practical methods for identifying these fatal characteristics in your own organization and preventing them from leading to failure. No matter what the size of your company, the lessons in Why Companies Fail could be the difference between long-lasting success and sudden flameout. And before any company can go from good to great, it's got to be on the right track in the first place.This valuable guide will show you how. |
business that never fail: Failing To Win Mike Quinn, 2021-12-10 |
business that never fail: Good to Great Jim Collins, 2001-10-16 The Challenge Built to Last, the defining management study of the nineties, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the verybeginning. But what about the company that is not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness? The Study For years, this question preyed on the mind of Jim Collins. Are there companies that defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? And if so, what are the universal distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great? The Standards Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in fifteen years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world's greatest companies, including Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric, and Merck. The Comparisons The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to make the leap from good to great. What was different? Why did one set of companies become truly great performers while the other set remained only good? Over five years, the team analyzed the histories of all twenty-eight companies in the study. After sifting through mountains of data and thousands of pages of interviews, Collins and his crew discovered the key determinants of greatness -- why some companies make the leap and others don't. The Findings The findings of the Good to Great study will surprise many readers and shed light on virtually every area of management strategy and practice. The findings include: Level 5 Leaders: The research team was shocked to discover the type of leadership required to achieve greatness. The Hedgehog Concept (Simplicity within the Three Circles): To go from good to great requires transcending the curse of competence. A Culture of Discipline: When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great results. Technology Accelerators: Good-to-great companies think differently about the role of technology. The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Those who launch radical change programs and wrenching restructurings will almost certainly fail to make the leap. “Some of the key concepts discerned in the study,” comments Jim Collins, fly in the face of our modern business culture and will, quite frankly, upset some people.” Perhaps, but who can afford to ignore these findings? |
business that never fail: Leading Change John P. Kotter, 2012 From the ill-fated dot-com bubble to unprecedented merger and acquisition activity to scandal, greed, and, ultimately, recession -- we've learned that widespread and difficult change is no longer the exception. By outlining the process organizations have used to achieve transformational goals and by identifying where and how even top performers derail during the change process, Kotter provides a practical resource for leaders and managers charged with making change initiatives work. |
business that never fail: Harvard Business Review Family Business Handbook Josh Baron, Rob Lachenauer, 2021-01-26 Navigate the complex decisions and critical relationships necessary to create and sustain a healthy family business—and business family. Though family business may sound like it refers only to mom-and-pop shops, businesses owned by families are among the most significant and numerous in the world. But surprisingly few resources exist to help navigate the unique challenges you face when you share the executive suite, financial statements, and holidays. How do you make the right decisions, critical to the long-term survival of any business, with the added challenge of having to do so within the context of a family? The HBR Family Business Handbook brings you sophisticated guidance and practical advice from family business experts Josh Baron and Rob Lachenauer. Drawing on their decades-long experience working closely with a wide range of family businesses of all sizes around the world, the authors present proven methods and approaches for communicating effectively, managing conflict, building the right governance structures, and more. In the HBR Family Business Handbook you'll find: A new perspective on what makes family businesses succeed and fail A framework to help you make good decisions together Step-by-step guidance on managing change within your business family Key questions about wealth, unique to family businesses, that you can't afford to ignore Assessments to help you determine where you are—and where you want to go Stories of real companies, from Marchesi Antinori to Radio Flyer Chapter summaries you can use to reinforce what you've learned Keep this comprehensive guide with you to help you build, grow, and position your family business to thrive across generations. HBR Handbooks provide ambitious professionals with the frameworks, advice, and tools they need to excel in their careers. With step-by-step guidance, time-honed best practices, and real-life stories, each comprehensive volume helps you to stand out from the pack—whatever your role. |
business that never fail: Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck Anthony K. Tjan, Richard J. Harrington, Tsun-Yan Hsieh, 2012 Examines the traits that define most people who achieve success, heart, smarts, guts, and luck, and helps readers to determine which traits they possess. |
business that never fail: Do. Fail. Learn. Repeat. Nicholas Haralambous, 2018-06-25 Are you bored and baffled by spin doctors telling you how to succeed, how to make $1 000 000 or how to build the best business in just 30 days? Everyone claims to have the next best short cut or hack to help you along the path of entrepreneurship. It's all bullshit. In his business autobiography Do. Fail. Learn. Repeat. Nicholas Haralambous discusses the truth about the last 15 years of his entrepreneurial journey. ANYONE CAN START SOMETHING. Nic openly discusses his failures and sacrifices over the past decade and a half spent building businesses. There is advice all over the place about the rules to follow if you want to succeed, the do's and don'ts of running a company, the how-to of how-to do this, that or the next thing. There are also many personalities out there telling young entrepreneurs to hustle non-stop, risk everything and never sleep if they want success. YOUR CHANCE OF FAILURE IS ALMOST GUARANTEED. No one talks about how hard it is, how lonely it is and how difficult it is to build a business. No one is willing to forgo their ego and be honest. If nothing else, Nic Haralambous is honest about his journey. MOST PEOPLE WON'T LEARN. Nic has lived the hustle; he has pushed through physical pain, mental suffering, business failures, personal torment and relationship strife all in the name of building businesses. ALMOST NO ONE DOES IT AGAIN. Nic decided to write a big book of his failures so that entrepreneurs around the world can begin to understand that it is not always glamorous, easy or fun to build a business. If entrepreneurship is calling you then you absolutely cannot miss out on the truth, behind the business, written by Nic Haralambous. |
business that never fail: The Ten Commandments for Business Failure Don Keough, 2008-07-31 “After a lifetime in business, I’ve never been able to develop a set of rules or a step-by-step formula that will guarantee success in anything, much less in a field as dynamic and changing as business. What I can do, however, is talk about how to lose. I guarantee that anyone who follows my formula will be a highly successful loser.” The Ten Commandments for Business Failure is a lighthearted cautionary bible for leaders from a hugely admired elder statesman who is sought out for advice by a wide circle of luminaries. Plenty of speakers and writers are happy to dispense advice on how to succeed in business. From football coaches to ex-CEOs to psychologists to preachers, success gurus are everywhere. But none of them can offer any guarantees; the true path to success can’t be laid out as a simple step-by-step plan. The same cannot be said of failure, however. Failure is easy. In fact, there are ten serious blunders companies and individuals make over and over again, leading to failure so consistently that the list ought to be written in stone. Don Keough, who has seen and heard a lot in his six decade career, calls them his Ten Commandments for Business Failure. They include such reliable bad advice as Quit Taking Risks, Be Inflexible, Assume Infallibility, Put All Your Faith in Experts, and Be Afraid of the Future. |
business that never fail: Let Go to Grow Doug White, Polly White, 2011 |
business that never fail: Motivation Brian Tracy, 2013 Most of your employees have all the ingredients for greatness inside them already. They simply need you to motivate them. Learn how today! |
business that never fail: The Founder's Dilemmas Noam Wasserman, 2013-04 The Founder's Dilemmas examines how early decisions by entrepreneurs can make or break a startup and its team. Drawing on a decade of research, including quantitative data on almost ten thousand founders as well as inside stories of founders like Evan Williams of Twitter and Tim Westergren of Pandora, Noam Wasserman reveals the common pitfalls founders face and how to avoid them. |
business that never fail: Why Nations Fail Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson, 2013-09-17 Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world. |
business that never fail: Million Dollar Coach Taki Moore, 2016-11-06 Million Dollar Coach is the must-have resource for coaches. Increase the income you earn, work when and how you want, watch your clients get incredible results...... and become empowered to live a life of massive personal freedom. Million Dollar Coach is designed to shift these issues you may be experiencing such as: * Too many coaches hit an income ceiling, and never make the kind of money (or the kind of impact) that they are capable of. They get stuck at one of the 3 plateaus: Survival, Stability or even Success * Most coaches blame themselves, and try to work on their MINDSET - But nothing changes because it's not your mindset that's the problem. It's the MODEL that needs to change. * The model that you bought into when you started your coaching business is completely unscalable (Manual prospecting to get a few leads, followed by one-to-one selling and dealing with objections, excuses and stalls... and time-for-money coaching so there's never any time for you). * For the last 5 years, the author has been working with a select group of coaches, taking them from Stability to Success and Scale. Taki Moore has a very new approach and he shares the very best of what is working for them to become a Million Dollar Coach. This book is essential reading for coaches of all types and experience-levels and is of particular value for anyone looking to start a coaching business to short cut growing pains and quickly rise to become a Million Dollar Coach. |
business that never fail: Why S.O.B.'s Succeed, and Nice Guys Fail in a Small Business Financial Management Associates, 1976 |
business that never fail: Never Get a "Real" Job Scott Gerber, 2010-12-07 Young serial entrepreneur Scott Gerber is not the product of a wealthy family or storied entrepreneurial heritage. Nor is he the outcome of a traditional business school education or a corporate executive turned entrepreneur. Rather, he is a hard-working, self-taught 26-year-old hustler, rainmaker, and bootstrapper who has survived and thrived despite never having held the proverbial real” job. In Never Get a Real Job: How to Dump Your Boss, Build a Business, and Not Go Broke, Gerber challenges the social conventions behind the real job and empowers young people to take control of their lives and dump their nine-to-fives—or their quest to attain them. Drawing upon case studies, experiences, and observations, Scott dissects failures, shares hard-learned lessons, and presents practical, affordable, and systematic action steps to building, managing, and marketing a successful business on a shoestring budget. The proven, no-b.s. methodology presented in Never Get a Real Job teaches unemployed and underemployed Gen-Yers, aspiring small business owners, students, and recent college graduates how to quit 9-to-5s, become their own bosses, and achieve financial independence. |
business that never fail: The Mindful Entrepreneur Joel Gerschman, Aryeh Goldman, Howard Finger, 2017-04 Chronicling the true story of one entrepreneur's journey, The Mindful Entrepreneur provides a raw, brutally honest account of how to transform the frustrations, pain and struggles faced by countless business owners into stability, growth, freedom and meaning. |
business that never fail: The Business Guide James Lawrence Nichols, 1907 |
business that never fail: The Value Killers Nuno Fernandes, 2019-06-25 In a business climate marked by escalating global competition and industry disruption, successful mergers and acquisitions are increasingly vital to the growth and profitability of many corporations. If history is any guide, 60 to 70 per cent of new mergers will fail – and will destroy shareholder value. To date, analyses of the M&A failure rate tend to focus on individual causes – e.g., culture clashes, valuation methods, or CEO overconfidence – rather than examining the problem holistically. The Value Killers is the first book based on a holistic analysis of successful and unsuccessful transactions. Based on research, interviews with top executives, and case studies, this book identifies the key causes of failures and successes and offers prescriptions to increase the odds that future transactions will deliver all the anticipated synergies. The Value Killers offers practical advice in the form of 5 Golden Rules. These rules will help managers and boards to ensure that target companies are properly valued; potential synergies and risks are identified in advance; checks and balances are installed to make sure that the pros and cons of the transaction are rationally and objectively evaluated; mechanisms are created that will trigger termination of bad deals; and obstacles to successful post-merger integrations are assessed (and solutions developed) before the deal closes. Each chapter includes questions for executives considering future M&As to allow them to see whether they are on the right track or not. |
business that never fail: Why Decisions Fail Paul Nutt, 2002-07-10 Based on the his analysis of 400 strategic decisions made by top managers in areas such as products and services, pricing and markets, personnel policy, technology acquisition, and strategic reorganization, Nutt estimates that two-thirds of all decisions are based on failure-prone or questionable tactics. He uses the fifteen monumental decision-making disasters to illustrate the potential consequences of these common tactical errors and traps and then details successful alternative decision-making approaches. Why Decisions Fail translates decades of award-winning research into practical terms that managers can use to improve their own decision-making practices. |
business that never fail: Never-Fail Blake Arthur Stringer, 2019-12-10 Never-Fail Blake by Arthur Stringer is about the life of second deputy Detective Jim Blake, a womanizer who pursues lovely women with passionate intention. Excerpt: Blake, the Second Deputy, raised his gloomy hound's eyes as the door opened and a woman stepped in. Then he dropped them again. Hello, Elsie! he said, without looking at her. The woman stood a moment staring at him. Then she advanced thoughtfully toward his table desk. Hello, Jim! she answered, as she sank into the empty chair at the desk end. The rustling of silk suddenly ceased. An aphrodisiac odor of ambergris crept through the Deputy-Commissioner's office. The woman looped up her veil, festooning it about the undulatory roll of her hat brim. Blake continued his solemnly preoccupied study of the desktop. You sent for me, the woman finally said. It was more a reminder than a question. And the voice, for all its quietness, carried no sense of timidity. |
business that never fail: Hill's Manual of Business and Social Information Thomas Edie Hill, 1921 |
business that never fail: Managing Startups: Best Blog Posts Thomas Eisenmann, 2013-05-01 If you want salient advice about your startup, you’ve hit the jackpot with this book. Harvard Business School Professor Tom Eisenmann annually compiles the best posts from many blogs on technology startup management, primarily for the benefit of his students. This book makes his latest collection available to the broader entrepreneur community. You’ll find 72 posts from successful entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, such as Fred Wilson, Steve Blank, Ash Maurya, Joel Spolsky, and Ben Yoskovitz. They cover a wide range of topics essential to your startup’s success, including: Management tasks: Engineering, product management, marketing, sales, and business development Organizational issues: Cofounder tensions, recruiting, and career planning Funding: The latest developments in capital markets that affect startups Divided into 13 areas of focus, the book’s contributors explore the metrics you need to run your startup, discuss lean prototyping techniques for hardware, identify costly outsourcing mistakes, provide practical tips on user acquisition, offer branding guidelines, and explain how a choir of angel investors often will sing different parts. And that’s just for starters. |
business that never fail: Build the Damn Thing Kathryn Finney, 2022-06-07 The Wall Street Journal Bestseller featured in Bloomberg, Fast Company, Masters of Scale, the Motley Fool, Marketplace and more. An indispensable guide to building a startup and breaking down the barriers for diverse entrepreneurs from the visionary venture capitalist and pioneering entrepreneur Kathryn Finney. Build the Damn Thing is a hard-won, battle-tested guide for every entrepreneur who the establishment has left out. Finney, an investor and startup champion, explains how to build a business from the ground up, from developing a business plan to finding investors, growing a team, and refining a product. Finney empowers entrepreneurs to take advantage of their unique networks and resources; arms readers with responses to investors who say, “great pitch but I just don’t do Black women”; and inspires them to overcome naysayers while remaining “100% That B*tch.” Don’t wait for the system to let you in—break down the door and build your damn thing. For all the Builders striving to build their businesses in a world that has overlooked and underestimated them: this is the essential guide to knowing, breaking, remaking and building your own rules of entrepreneurship in a startup and investing world designed for and by the “Entitleds.” |
business that never fail: How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big Scott Adams, 2023-08-17 The World’s Most Influential Book on Personal Success The bestselling classic that made Systems Over Goals, Talent Stacking, and Passion Is Overrated universal success advice has been reborn. Once in a generation, a book revolutionizes its category and becomes the preeminent reference that all subsequent books on the topic must pay homage to, in name or in spirit. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, is such a book for the field of personal success. A contrarian pundit and persuasion expert in a class of his own, Adams has reached hundreds of millions directly and indirectly through the 2013 first edition’s straightforward yet counterintuitive advice—to invite failure in, embrace it, then pick its pocket. The second edition of How to Fail is a tighter, updated version, by popular demand. Yet new and returning readers alike will find the same candor, humor, and timeless wisdom on productivity, career growth, health and fitness, and entrepreneurial success as the original classic. How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, Second Edition is the essential read (or re-read) for anyone who wants to find a unique path to personal victory—and make luck find you in whatever you do. |
business that never fail: Ask a Manager Alison Green, 2018-05-01 From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together |
business that never fail: UNSCRIPTED MJ DeMarco, 2017-05-23 What if Life Wasn't About 50 Years of Wage-Slavery, Paying Bills and then Dying? Tired of sleepwalking through a mediocre life bribed by mindless video-gaming, redemptive weekends, and a scant paycheck from a soul-suffocating job? Welcome to the SCRIPTED club— where membership is neither perceived or consented. The fact is, ever since you’ve been old enough to sit obediently in a classroom, you have been culturally engineered for servitude, unwittingly enslaved into a Machiavellian system where illusionary rules go unchallenged, sanctified traditions go unquestioned, and lifelong dreams go unfulfilled. As a result, your life is hijacked and marginalised into debt, despair, and dependence. Life's death sentence becomes the daily curse of the trivial and mundane. Fun fades. Dreams die. Don't let life's consolation prize become a car and a weekend. Recapture what is yours and make a revolutionary repossession of life-and-liberty through the pursuit of entrepreneurship. A paradigm shift isn't needed—the damn paradigm needs to be thrown-out altogether. The truth is, if you blindly follow conventional wisdom pushed by conventional people living conventional lives, can you expect to be anything but conventional? Rewrite life’s script: ditch the job, give Wall Street the bird, and escape the insanity of trading your life away for a paycheck and an elderly promise called retirement. UNSCRIPT today and start leading life— instead of life leading you. |
business that never fail: Fail Fast or Win Big Bernhard Schroeder, 2015-02-18 With today’s marketplace changing at lightning speed, how can entrepreneurs spend the traditional several months perfecting their business plans and finding investors before finally launching their business? They can’t! Because the truth is, the longer they take to launch their company, the more changes there will be in the marketplace--causing their business to be outdated before it even begins!Today’s entrepreneurs must avoid the temptation to play it safe and launch a business in a bubble. Instead, they need to embrace the idea of “failing fast.” Almost upon genesis of the idea, it is detrimental for the entrepreneur to connect with real customers and determine quickly whether their idea is worth pursuing, needs new direction, or should be abandoned altogether.In the groundbreaking, tell-it-like-it-is Fail Fast or Win Big, entrepreneurs will learn how to: • Create a rapid prototype of their product or service• Develop a business model instead of a business plan• Test it repeatedly with customers so they can spot failure early• Continue to refine the model based on customer interactions• Leverage their network and resources in order to run leanComplete with real-life examples of entrepreneurs who set out to fail fast and ended up winning big, Fail Fast or Win Big is the business plan you didn’t study in college. But just like the marketplace, those outdated concepts have changed too! |
business that never fail: The Fourth Industrial Revolution Klaus Schwab, 2017-01-03 World-renowned economist Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, explains that we have an opportunity to shape the fourth industrial revolution, which will fundamentally alter how we live and work. Schwab argues that this revolution is different in scale, scope and complexity from any that have come before. Characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital and biological worlds, the developments are affecting all disciplines, economies, industries and governments, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human. Artificial intelligence is already all around us, from supercomputers, drones and virtual assistants to 3D printing, DNA sequencing, smart thermostats, wearable sensors and microchips smaller than a grain of sand. But this is just the beginning: nanomaterials 200 times stronger than steel and a million times thinner than a strand of hair and the first transplant of a 3D printed liver are already in development. Imagine “smart factories” in which global systems of manufacturing are coordinated virtually, or implantable mobile phones made of biosynthetic materials. The fourth industrial revolution, says Schwab, is more significant, and its ramifications more profound, than in any prior period of human history. He outlines the key technologies driving this revolution and discusses the major impacts expected on government, business, civil society and individuals. Schwab also offers bold ideas on how to harness these changes and shape a better future—one in which technology empowers people rather than replaces them; progress serves society rather than disrupts it; and in which innovators respect moral and ethical boundaries rather than cross them. We all have the opportunity to contribute to developing new frameworks that advance progress. |
business that never fail: One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez, 2022-10-11 Netflix’s series adaptation of One Hundred Years of Solitude premieres December 11, 2024! One of the twentieth century’s enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize–winning career. The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Rich and brilliant, it is a chronicle of life, death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the beautiful, ridiculous, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America. Love and lust, war and revolution, riches and poverty, youth and senility, the variety of life, the endlessness of death, the search for peace and truth—these universal themes dominate the novel. Alternately reverential and comical, One Hundred Years of Solitude weaves the political, personal, and spiritual to bring a new consciousness to storytelling. Translated into dozens of languages, this stunning work is no less than an account of the history of the human race. |
business that never fail: HBR's 10 Must Reads on Entrepreneurship and Startups (featuring Bonus Article “Why the Lean Startup Changes Everything” by Steve Blank) Harvard Business Review, Steve Blank, Marc Andreessen, Reid Hoffman, William A. Sahlman, 2018-01-23 The best entrepreneurs balance brilliant business ideas with a rigorous commitment to serving their customers' needs. If you read nothing else on entrepreneurship and startups, read these 10 articles by experts in the field. We've combed through hundreds of articles in the Harvard Business Review archive and selected the most important ones to help you build your company for enduring success. Leading experts and practitioners such as Clayton Christensen, Marc Andreessen, and Reid Hoffman provide the insights and advice that will inspire you to: Understand what makes entrepreneurial leaders tick Know what matters in a great business plan Adopt lean startup practices such as business model experimentation Be prepared for the race for scale in Silicon Valley Better understand the world of venture capital--and know what you'll get along with VC funding Take an alternative approach to entrepreneurship: buy an existing business and run it as CEO This collection of articles includes Hiring an Entrepreneurial Leader, by Timothy Butler; How to Write a Great Business Plan, by William A. Sahlman; Why the Lean Start-Up Changes Everything, by Steve Blank; The President of SRI Ventures on Bringing Siri to Life, by Norman Winarsky; In Search of the Next Big Thing, an interview with Marc Andreessen by Adi Ignatius; Six Myths About Venture Capitalists, by Diane Mulcahy; Chobani's Founder on Growing a Start-Up Without Outside Investors, by Hamdi Ulukaya; Network Effects Aren’t Enough, by Andrei Hagiu and Simon Rothman; Blitzscaling, an interview with Reid Hoffman by Tim Sullivan; Buying Your Way into Entrepreneurship, by Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff; and The Founder's Dilemma, by Noam Wasserman. |
business that never fail: How the Mighty Fall Jim Collins, 2011-09-06 Decline can be avoided. Decline can be detected. Decline can be reversed. Amidst the desolate landscape of fallen great companies, Jim Collins began to wonder: How do the mighty fall? Can decline be detected early and avoided? How far can a company fall before the path toward doom becomes inevitable and unshakable? How can companies reverse course? In How the Mighty Fall, Collins confronts these questions, offering leaders the well-founded hope that they can learn how to stave off decline and, if they find themselves falling, reverse their course. Collins' research project—more than four years in duration—uncovered five step-wise stages of decline: Stage 1: Hubris Born of Success Stage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More Stage 3: Denial of Risk and Peril Stage 4: Grasping for Salvation Stage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death By understanding these stages of decline, leaders can substantially reduce their chances of falling all the way to the bottom. Great companies can stumble, badly, and recover. Every institution, no matter how great, is vulnerable to decline. There is no law of nature that the most powerful will inevitably remain at the top. Anyone can fall and most eventually do. But, as Collins' research emphasizes, some companies do indeed recover—in some cases, coming back even stronger—even after having crashed into the depths of Stage 4. Decline, it turns out, is largely self-inflicted, and the path to recovery lies largely within our own hands. We are not imprisoned by our circumstances, our history, or even our staggering defeats along the way. As long as we never get entirely knocked out of the game, hope always remains. The mighty can fall, but they can often rise again. |
business that never fail: Testing Business Ideas David J. Bland, Alexander Osterwalder, 2019-11-06 A practical guide to effective business model testing 7 out of 10 new products fail to deliver on expectations. Testing Business Ideas aims to reverse that statistic. In the tradition of Alex Osterwalder’s global bestseller Business Model Generation, this practical guide contains a library of hands-on techniques for rapidly testing new business ideas. Testing Business Ideas explains how systematically testing business ideas dramatically reduces the risk and increases the likelihood of success for any new venture or business project. It builds on the internationally popular Business Model Canvas and Value Proposition Canvas by integrating Assumptions Mapping and other powerful lean startup-style experiments. Testing Business Ideas uses an engaging 4-color format to: Increase the success of any venture and decrease the risk of wasting time, money, and resources on bad ideas Close the knowledge gap between strategy and experimentation/validation Identify and test your key business assumptions with the Business Model Canvas and Value Proposition Canvas A definitive field guide to business model testing, this book features practical tips for making major decisions that are not based on intuition and guesses. Testing Business Ideas shows leaders how to encourage an experimentation mindset within their organization and make experimentation a continuous, repeatable process. |
business that never fail: Businesses Don't Fail They Commit Suicide Larry Mandelberg, 2023-04-19 Symptoms that Your Business May be About to Commit Suicide… Do constant disruptions and distractions make you feel like the business is managing you rather than you’re managing the business? Do the Board and senior managers disagree on major decisions? Is one department or department head the source of most problems? Is conflict within the leadership team undermining staff morale? If your business is suffering from any of the above problems then it’s time to do something about it. No business ever failed because they ran out of money. Most businesses fail because their success brings unfamiliar problems that leaders and managers do not know how to solve. Running out of money is simply a lagging indicator of prior bad decisions and a failure to anticipate change. This book shows you how to anticipate change, manage internal conflict, and leverage it to your advantage. With real-life stories that explore common situations, angst, and humor in ways that are understandable and insightful, Mandelberg delivers: The problems that come with success and how to manage them The infallible crystal ball that lets you see change coming before it’s too late Eight operational must-haves and how your organization ranks Exiting the 'whack-a-mole' cycle with problems that don't get fixed Turning change done unto you into change done unto others, and of course, Why businesses fail Based on over 40 years of experience and interviews with over 250 business leaders, Mandelberg explains how to avoid failure and build a strong, successful business that lasts. Click 'buy now' and prepare your business to survive success! |
business that never fail: The Four Steps to the Epiphany Steve Blank, 2020-03-17 The bestselling classic that launched 10,000 startups and new corporate ventures - The Four Steps to the Epiphany is one of the most influential and practical business books of all time. The Four Steps to the Epiphany launched the Lean Startup approach to new ventures. It was the first book to offer that startups are not smaller versions of large companies and that new ventures are different than existing ones. Startups search for business models while existing companies execute them. The book offers the practical and proven four-step Customer Development process for search and offers insight into what makes some startups successful and leaves others selling off their furniture. Rather than blindly execute a plan, The Four Steps helps uncover flaws in product and business plans and correct them before they become costly. Rapid iteration, customer feedback, testing your assumptions are all explained in this book. Packed with concrete examples of what to do, how to do it and when to do it, the book will leave you with new skills to organize sales, marketing and your business for success. If your organization is starting a new venture, and you're thinking how to successfully organize sales, marketing and business development you need The Four Steps to the Epiphany. Essential reading for anyone starting something new. The Four Steps to the Epiphany was originally published by K&S Ranch Publishing Inc. and is now available from Wiley. The cover, design, and content are the same as the prior release and should not be considered a new or updated product. |
business that never fail: The Lean Startup Eric Ries, 2011-09-13 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. |
business that never fail: Winners Are Not Those Who Never Fail But Those Who Never Quit Edwin Louis Cole, 2003-09 When life is just too tough, God's faithfulness is tougher! Whether you are facing the challenge of a job loss, mid-life crisis, troubled marriage, major illness, graduating, moving, financial difficulties or general stress-studying this curriculum can propel you to victory and success. |
business that never fail: Rework Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson, 2010-03-09 Rework shows you a better, faster, easier way to succeed in business. Most business books give you the same old advice: Write a business plan, study the competition, seek investors, yadda yadda. If you're looking for a book like that, put this one back on the shelf. Read it and you'll know why plans are actually harmful, why you don't need outside investors, and why you're better off ignoring the competition. The truth is, you need less than you think. You don't need to be a workaholic. You don't need to staff up. You don't need to waste time on paperwork or meetings. You don't even need an office. Those are all just excuses. What you really need to do is stop talking and start working. This book shows you the way. You'll learn how to be more productive, how to get exposure without breaking the bank, and tons more counterintuitive ideas that will inspire and provoke you. With its straightforward language and easy-is-better approach, Rework is the perfect playbook for anyone who’s ever dreamed of doing it on their own. Hardcore entrepreneurs, small-business owners, people stuck in day jobs they hate, victims of downsizing, and artists who don’t want to starve anymore will all find valuable guidance in these pages. |
business that never fail: The Invincible Company Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Alan Smith, Frederic Etiemble, 2020-04-06 The long-awaited follow-up to the international bestsellers, Business Model Generation and Value Proposition Design Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneurs’ Business Model Canvas changed the way the world creates and plans new business models. It has been used by corporations and startups and consultants around the world and is taught in hundreds of universities. After years of researching how the world’s best companies develop, test, and scale new business models, the authors have produced their definitive work. The Invincible Company explains what every organization can learn from the business models of the world’s most exciting companies. The book explains how companies such as Amazon, IKEA, Airbnb, Microsoft, and Logitech, have been able to create immensely successful businesses and disrupt entire industries. At the core of these successes are not just great products and services, but profitable, innovative business models--and the ability to improve existing business models while consistently launching new ones. The Invincible Company presents practical new tools for measuring, managing, and accelerating innovation, and strategies for reducing risk when launching new business models. Serving as a blueprint for your growth strategy, The Invincible Company explains how to constantly stay ahead of your competition. In-depth chapters explain how to create new growth engines, change how products and services are created and delivered, extract maximum profit from each type of business model, and much more. New tools—such as the Business Model Portfolio Map, Innovation Metrics, Innovation Strategy Framework, and the Culture Map—enable readers to understand how to design invincible companies. The Invincible Company: ● Helps large and small companies build their growth strategy and manage their core simultaneously ● Explains the world's best modern and historic business models ● Provides tools to assess your business model, innovation readiness, and all of your innovation projects Presented in striking 4-color, and packed with practical visuals and tools, The Invincible Company is a must-have book for business leaders, entrepreneurs, and innovation professionals. |
BUSINESS | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
BUSINESS definition: 1. the activity of buying and selling goods and services: 2. a particular company that buys …
VENTURE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
VENTURE definition: 1. a new activity, usually in business, that involves risk or uncertainty: 2. to risk going….
ENTERPRISE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
ENTERPRISE definition: 1. an organization, especially a business, or a difficult and important plan, …
INCUMBENT | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
INCUMBENT definition: 1. officially having the named position: 2. to be necessary for someone: 3. the …
AD HOC | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
AD HOC definition: 1. made or happening only for a particular purpose or need, not planned …
BUSINESS | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
BUSINESS definition: 1. the activity of buying and selling goods and services: 2. a particular company that buys …
VENTURE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
VENTURE definition: 1. a new activity, usually in business, that involves risk or uncertainty: 2. to risk going….
ENTERPRISE | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
ENTERPRISE definition: 1. an organization, especially a business, or a difficult and important plan, …
INCUMBENT | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
INCUMBENT definition: 1. officially having the named position: 2. to be necessary for someone: 3. the …
AD HOC | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
AD HOC definition: 1. made or happening only for a particular purpose or need, not planned …