RAG Demo

Tag: Startups

  • Shoe Dog

    In 1962, fresh from Stanford business school, Phil Knight persuaded his father to lend him money for a trip around the world and pitched himself, with no company behind him, to the Japanese shoemaker Onitsuka Tiger. He came home as the American distributor of their running shoes and started selling them from the back of his car at track meets in Oregon.

    The memoir covers the years from that crazy idea to Nike's public offering in 1980. Knight describes his partnership with Bill Bowerman, his old University of Oregon track coach, who tinkered with soles on a waffle iron, and the eccentric early employees who ran the business. Much of the drama is financial: constant cash crises, hostile banks, a bitter split with Onitsuka and the creation of the Nike brand and swoosh, plus a ruinous customs duty dispute.

    Knight writes with unusual candour about self-doubt, mistakes and the toll on his family. Little of it reads like a corporate history; it is a story about persistence and the chaotic reality of starting a company. The final chapters step back to reflect on what the company cost him and on the people who made it possible, giving the memoir an unexpectedly moving close.

    Book details

    AuthorPhil Knight
    First published2016
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreMemoir
    TypeNon-fiction
    Pages (approx.)386
    SettingOregon and Japan, 1962-1980

    Themes

    • Entrepreneurship
    • Persistence
    • Partnership
    • Risk
    • Sport

    Who should read it

    Aspiring founders and sports fans who want an honest account of how messy and uncertain building a business really is.

    If you liked this, try

    • Steve Jobs
    • Zero to One
    • The Ride of a Lifetime

  • Zero to One

    Zero to One grew out of a course on startups that PayPal co-founder and investor Peter Thiel taught at Stanford in 2012; student Blake Masters's class notes became the basis of the book, and he is credited as co-author. Its title captures Thiel's central distinction: copying what already works takes the world from one to n, while genuine innovation takes it from zero to one.

    Thiel argues that competition is overrated and that great companies are monopolies, built by dominating a small niche and expanding outward through proprietary technology, network effects, economies of scale and branding. He asks founders a provocative interview question about which important truth few people agree with them on, and criticises indefinite optimism that expects a better future without a concrete plan.

    Chapters also cover the power law in venture returns, the importance of founding teams and sales, the role of secrets, and how humans and computers might complement each other. The tone is aphoristic and opinionated, which has made the book both a Silicon Valley favourite and a frequent target of debate.

    Book details

    AuthorPeter Thiel
    First published2014
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreBusiness
    TypeNon-fiction
    Pages (approx.)224

    Themes

    • Innovation
    • Monopoly
    • Contrarian thinking
    • Startups
    • The future

    Who should read it

    Founders, investors and anyone interested in how Silicon Valley thinks about building companies that create new markets.

    If you liked this, try

    • The Lean Startup
    • The Hard Thing About Hard Things
    • Good to Great

  • The Lean Startup

    Eric Ries drew on his own startup failures and on lean manufacturing ideas from Toyota to propose a scientific approach to entrepreneurship. He defines a startup as a human institution creating a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty, a definition that includes teams inside large companies and government agencies as well as garage ventures.

    The core of the method is the build-measure-learn feedback loop. Instead of spending months on a perfect launch, teams release a minimum viable product, measure how real customers behave, and use that evidence to test their leap-of-faith assumptions. Ries introduces innovation accounting, actionable rather than vanity metrics, split testing, small batches and continuous deployment, and the disciplined choice to pivot when the data says the strategy is wrong.

    Examples range from IMVU, the company Ries co-founded, to Dropbox, Intuit and Zappos. The vocabulary of the book quickly entered the mainstream of product management, and its ideas now underpin accelerator programmes, corporate innovation labs and agile product teams around the world. Ries later built on the approach in The Startup Way, aimed at established companies.

    Book details

    AuthorEric Ries
    First published2011
    Original languageEnglish
    GenreBusiness
    TypeNon-fiction
    Pages (approx.)336

    Themes

    • Experimentation
    • Validated learning
    • Product development
    • Uncertainty
    • Iteration

    Who should read it

    Founders, product managers and corporate innovators who want a disciplined way to test ideas before investing heavily in them.

    If you liked this, try

    • Zero to One
    • The Startup Owner's Manual
    • Inspired