The Big Enough Company
The Big Enough Company

Author: Adelaide Lancaster

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2012-09-25

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1591845602

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All entrepreneurs start their companies because they think it will give them freedom-freedom to work on their own terms, be their own bosses, and create a company that meets their needs. But so often the opposite happens, and they end up encumbered by businesses that bear little to no resemblance to those they had envisioned. They wind up working for their companies, but their companies don't work for them. Despite the freedom that striking out on your own promises, most of the accepted wisdom on how to build a small business advocates a one- size-fits-all approach. So-called experts-and sometimes just well-meaning friends-urge business owners to grow fast, be more profitable, and imitate other successful start-ups. And while these tips may work for some, they fail to consider the astounding variety of values and motivations that individuals have for starting a business. Too often, owners sacrifice their personal satisfaction in order to conform to unnecessary (and often unworkable) standards. Adelaide Lancaster and Amy Abrams have seen this problem for years when working with women entrepreneurs like themselves. They set out to explore how successful female business owners have grown their enterprises in a way that sustains their own personal goals and needs, not someone else's standards. Drawing on the true stories of nearly 100 entrepreneurs, as well as their own experiences, Abrams and Lancaster guide readers through the best principles that really matter when you work for yourself. For instance: Figure out what's in it for you: Clarify why you started your business and what you want to get out of it over the long haul. Find a role that suits your strengths: Identify where you add the most value and can have the most impact. Embrace experimentation: Trying new things gives you the opportunity to see what works and what doesn't and opens up unseen possibilities. This book empowers entrepreneurs to ignore popular "wisdom" and peer pressure to take charge of their businesses in a way that will help them succeed on their own terms.

Big Enough
Big Enough

Author: Lee LeFever

Publisher: Page Two

Published: 2020-09-15

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 1989603181

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Lee LeFever and his co-founder and wife, Sachi LeFever, didn't know exactly what type of business they were setting out to build when they started Common Craft in the early 2000s. What they were sure of is that they would design the business in such a way that they prioritized their happiness and time--they wanted the opportunity to go camping on Tuesdays if they felt like it, and make up the time later. While not sacrificing their vision for a business that values time over money, Lee and Sachi built a leading internet-based visual communications firm that includes Google, LEGO, Intel, Microsoft, Ford, and Dropbox as its clients. They paved the way for explainer videos that are now a mainstay of companies' marketing and communications strategy. They learned to pivot to different income streams, and say no to opportunities that would increase unhappiness and decrease autonomy. And they did it all while working from home, not taking on outside employees, and camping on Tuesdays. Like Paul Jarvis in Company of One, Lee shows how they did it, and offers his best tips for how you can build a business and a life you love.

Company of One
Company of One

Author: Paul Jarvis

Publisher: Mariner Books

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1328972356

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What if the real key to a richer and more fulfilling career was not to create and scale a new start-up, but rather, to be able to work for yourself, determine your own hours, and become a (highly profitable) and sustainable company of one? Suppose the better--and smarter--solution is simply to remain small? This book explains how to do just that. Company of One is a refreshingly new approach centered on staying small and avoiding growth, for any size business. Not as a freelancer who only gets paid on a per piece basis, and not as an entrepreneurial start-up that wants to scale as soon as possible, but as a small business that is deliberately committed to staying that way. By staying small, one can have freedom to pursue more meaningful pleasures in life, and avoid the headaches that result from dealing with employees, long meetings, or worrying about expansion. Company of One introduces this unique business strategy and explains how to make it work for you, including how to generate cash flow on an ongoing basis. Paul Jarvis left the corporate world when he realized that working in a high-pressure, high profile world was not his idea of success. Instead, he now works for himself out of his home on a small, lush island off of Vancouver, and lives a much more rewarding and productive life. He no longer has to contend with an environment that constantly demands more productivity, more output, and more growth. In Company of One, Jarvis explains how you can find the right pathway to do the same, including planning how to set up your shop, determining your desired revenues, dealing with unexpected crises, keeping your key clients happy, and of course, doing all of this on your own.

The Big Enough Company
The Big Enough Company

Author: Adelaide Lancaster

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2011-09-15

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 1101544295

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All entrepreneurs start their companies because they think it will give them freedom-freedom to work on their own terms, be their own bosses, and create a company that meets their needs. But so often the opposite happens, and they end up encumbered by businesses that bear little to no resemblance to those they had envisioned. They wind up working for their companies, but their companies don't work for them. Despite the freedom that striking out on your own promises, most of the accepted wisdom on how to build a small business advocates a one- size-fits-all approach. So-called experts-and sometimes just well-meaning friends-urge business owners to grow fast, be more profitable, and imitate other successful start-ups. And while these tips may work for some, they fail to consider the astounding variety of values and motivations that individuals have for starting a business. Too often, owners sacrifice their personal satisfaction in order to conform to unnecessary (and often unworkable) standards. Adelaide Lancaster and Amy Abrams have seen this problem for years when working with women entrepreneurs like themselves. They set out to explore how successful female business owners have grown their enterprises in a way that sustains their own personal goals and needs, not someone else's standards. Drawing on the true stories of nearly 100 entrepreneurs, as well as their own experiences, Abrams and Lancaster guide readers through the best principles that really matter when you work for yourself. For instance: Figure out what's in it for you: Clarify why you started your business and what you want to get out of it over the long haul. Find a role that suits your strengths: Identify where you add the most value and can have the most impact. Embrace experimentation: Trying new things gives you the opportunity to see what works and what doesn't and opens up unseen possibilities. This book empowers entrepreneurs to ignore popular "wisdom" and peer pressure to take charge of their businesses in a way that will help them succeed on their own terms.

Big Business
Big Business

Author: Tyler Cowen

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Published: 2019-04-09

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 1250110548

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An against-the-grain polemic on American capitalism from New York Times bestselling author Tyler Cowen. We love to hate the 800-pound gorilla. Walmart and Amazon destroy communities and small businesses. Facebook turns us into addicts while putting our personal data at risk. From skeptical politicians like Bernie Sanders who, at a 2016 presidential campaign rally said, “If a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist,” to millennials, only 42 percent of whom support capitalism, belief in big business is at an all-time low. But are big companies inherently evil? If business is so bad, why does it remain so integral to the basic functioning of America? Economist and bestselling author Tyler Cowen says our biggest problem is that we don’t love business enough. In Big Business, Cowen puts forth an impassioned defense of corporations and their essential role in a balanced, productive, and progressive society. He dismantles common misconceptions and untangles conflicting intuitions. According to a 2016 Gallup survey, only 12 percent of Americans trust big business “quite a lot,” and only 6 percent trust it “a great deal.” Yet Americans as a group are remarkably willing to trust businesses, whether in the form of buying a new phone on the day of its release or simply showing up to work in the expectation they will be paid. Cowen illuminates the crucial role businesses play in spurring innovation, rewarding talent and hard work, and creating the bounty on which we’ve all come to depend.

Beyond Entrepreneurship
Beyond Entrepreneurship

Author: James Charles Collins

Publisher: Business & Professional Division

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13:

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This inspiring and yet eminently practical guide shows entrepreneurs how to steer a company to enduring greatness. Leadership style, vision, corporate strategy, innovation, tactical excellence and other key elements are all explored in depth.

Good to Great
Good to Great

Author: Jim Collins

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2001-10-16

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 0066620996

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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?

The Founder's Dilemmas
The Founder's Dilemmas

Author: Noam Wasserman

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2013-04

Total Pages: 490

ISBN-13: 0691158304

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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.

The Great Game of Business
The Great Game of Business

Author: Jack Stack

Publisher: Broadway Business

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 9780385475259

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The Great Game of Business started a business revolution by introducing the world to open-book management, a new way of running a business that created unprecedented profit and employee engagement. The revised and updated edition of The Great Game of Business lays out an entirely different way of running a company. It wasn't dreamed up in an executive think tank or an Ivy League business school or around the conference table by big-time consultants. It was forged on the factory floors of the heartland by ordinary folks hoping to figure out how to save their jobs when their parent company, International Harvester, went down the tubes. What these workers created was a revolutionary approach to management that has proven itself in every industry around the world for the past thirty years--an approach that is perhaps the last, best hope for reviving the American Dream.