You often see aspiring entrepreneurs reading books by Jack Welch, Donald Trump, Bill Gates, etc. I can see how their advice might be valuable if you’re steering a business that’s got tons of cash and thousands of employees, but how much does what they write really apply to small businessmen and entrepreneurs?
When you’re coming out of the gate, megamanagers and celeb CEOs aren’t the best guides. How much do they really remember about starting out anyway? Is it really valuable to learn about Six Sigma techniques or when to layoff 10% of your workforce if you don’t even have a running business yet?
At this stage, what you really need to figure out is how to make it out of year one alive. Everything else is cart in front of horse.
Find stars in your own galaxy
A better idea: Find a star in your own galaxy to emulate. Seek out a company that has some valuable similarities to what you do and watch. The ideal candidate is a person or company that’s 1) done great things and 2) actually resembles you in some way.
So if you’re starting a t-shirt business, follow people like Threadless. If you want to open a kick-ass food store, pay attention to Zingerman’s. If you’re a design firm looking to sell products on the side, watch Coudal. Compare and contrast yourself to pioneers in your own niche rather than the world at large.
seth godin
on 15 Oct 08Lucky for us (and for you) that you guys weren’t reading Bill Gates’ book…
John S.
on 15 Oct 08Nice idea, but I don’t think books by megamanagers are totally worthless. They can help you think about problems differently. It’s not about getting specific advice for running your business, but understanding how to better think about business and business problems.
Frank D
on 15 Oct 08I have been thinking about this a good deal lately. It seems like many that get a bit of success think they have the business advice for everyone in every situation. With the uncertainty of our world and the methods of today, we should be humble in what we know and let ourselves be open to the changes that we need to make in the future. I like the advice on here and in your talks because it lays out a method that works for you guys with your specific intentions, while leaving yourself open to adaptation in the future.
Mahesh CR
on 15 Oct 08Again, spot on. It has become fashionable to be found with and spout such books. I take the spirit of what you have said, right training/inspiration at the right time. Thanks for sharing!
Scott Purdie
on 15 Oct 08Especially as what they did when they began probably wont be remarkable or work if its tried now.
I try to follow people who are still doing the same thing im trying to do. You guys and Carsonified are a great place to get great advice and help.
Cheers Matt, great post.
Peter Urban
on 15 Oct 08One of the best posts in a long time. Getting started and growing smart takes a very different approach then running an established organization. I see the mistake of small businesses emulating what works for Large & Co Inc. a lot. It’s definitely good advice to look around and find people that are one or two steps up and learn from them instead of ‘dreaming’ on the 20,000 foot level
Corey R
on 15 Oct 08This is good advice in any arena. Find people who seem happy, and try to do more of what they do, and less of what they don’t.
Weird but true: the really happy people I know are all excellent swordsmen.
Keith
on 15 Oct 08There is something to be said for trusting that people can distill the information from a book by a mega-corp CEO into something applicable to a small business.
In Trump’s “The Art of the Deal” he doesn’t launch into a whole treatise on billion dollar real-estate deals. He talks, at great length, about getting started in commercial real estate noting that he was to some degree lucky.
That said, this post is sound advice and even better than following the Coudal’s of the world is finding your local “Coudal” and trying to get a “lunch-date” for some face-to-face time!
Useful post, but don’t write off learning granular lessons from the big guys too! Even if what you learn is that you never want to “go global!”
PBJ
on 15 Oct 08Yuch, please don’t snausage a casino pimp like Donald Trump in with respectable greats like Jack Welch and Bill Gates. Donald Trump clearly knows how to make money, but he’s not someone I’d choose to “learn” from.
GeeIWonder
on 15 Oct 08Disagree. But that’s because of the way you’re talking about emulating AND learning, which are entirely different things.
You’ve got your perspective. And if you’re at all social, you’re able to get tons of perspectives from the stars in your galaxy. You could emulate them sure, but I wouldn’t. That’s another topic though…
Getting a view from another angle? Learning, truly learning, from a different perspective? Now that’s worthwhile, no matter which galaxy you’re in.
Benjy
on 15 Oct 08The obvious question… while many small software and web companies emulate 37S these days, who are some of the companies that 37S emulated to get where you guys are now? And who do you try and emulate these days?
Devan
on 15 Oct 08Erm…perhaps you would allow me to add the missing sentence in the last paragraph where your modesty prevented you from doing so… :)
“If you’re a small software startup, read Getting Real”.
Mark
on 15 Oct 08It’s hoped that small business people lean on books by the celebrity CEOs and others, know how to pull the nuggets of wisdom and relevancy from them to apply appropriately—while also being motivated by the success.
I also like some of the things Steven Sample writes about in “The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership”, regarding what he terms as “supertexts” or those books which dwell on the human condition such as various books / stories of the Bible, works of Shakesphere, philosophy…
Practical experience is also appreciated. I had an opportunity to speak directly to an energy executive not long ago about web-based applications. He stated that his biggest frustration in that the developers and designers which build the apps for this firm have never been in the atmosphere of where these apps are being used (in this case, the control center for a metropolitan electrical grid), and therefore the code and GUI design isn’t as relevant, useful and usable as it could be.
This example, of course, could play well with your idea of finding a star in your own universe, but it could also lend itself to understanding the larger universe, as well.
Patrick
on 15 Oct 08Jim Collins wrote a book about this idea. His first book was “Built To Last” which was all about some of the most highly successful businesses in the world and their business practices.
After that, he realized that his book was great for someone who is already running a big business, but not really speaking to people who were trying to get their small business to make that jump to great.
That’s when he wrote “Good To Great”. I have only read bits and pieces of it, but from what I’ve skimmed, it’s very interesting.
JP Pagán
on 16 Oct 08Amen. In fact, I worked for an agency that specifically wanted to transition into products. I must have dropped Coudal’s name at every meeting, fw’d interviews left and right. They had no interest. They wanted to know what Google did, what Apple did, what Gates did. And eventually, they folded. So yeah… amen.
Niek
on 16 Oct 08I’ve been reading a book called The 22 immutable laws of Marketing written bij Al Ries and Laura Ries.
Apart from some flawed arguments It has some valuable lessons in it, like:
“Don’t try to do what the rich and succesfull do, do what they did before they were succesful.”
Joe Sak
on 16 Oct 08You are one of those companies for me. Reading Maverick based on shout out by Jason Fried during a Live Q&A.
This discussion is closed.