Name: The Startup Playbook
Rating: 3.8 (214 reviews)
Author: David S. Kidder

What’s in it for me? Let the masters teach you how to succeed with your company.

In the United States alone, over 500,000 companies are started each month! Needless to say, many of these companies will not make it. In fact, most of them won’t. So how do you make sure your company is one of the lucky few? It’s simple. You learn from the ones who have made it.

In these blinks, five founders of highly successful companies share their secrets on how to grow your fledgling start-up business into a successful company. You already know that it’s important to be passionate and dedicated. But, as you’ll see, it takes a bit more than that to succeed with your company.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

how to turn unused resources into new products and services;
how Sara Blakely’s pantyhose ended up on Oprah; and
why the future is all that matters.

Enter the market early and anticipate obvious problems.

You’ve probably heard of the professional social network LinkedIn. But do you know the story behind it? Most people couldn’t tell you how such huge companies get started.

And, contrary to what many people think, the key isn’t to be in the right place at the right time – it’s to be there early.

This is a lesson from Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn. He’s also invested in several successful start-ups, and his secret is to spot a trend before it even starts. For example, when he invests in start-ups, he looks for companies whose value has yet to be fully recognized – a sure sign that a trend has yet to begin.

When Hoffman was starting LinkedIn, many people thought his idea would fail. Newspapers and headhunters already fulfilled the needs of the employment market, so why was his website necessary? Hoffman’s idea seemed bad because it came so early. This made it harder to find investors, but it also greatly diminished competition.

Another reason LinkedIn became so successful is Hoffman’s ability to anticipate solutions to obvious problems.

If you’ve got a great idea, chances are someone else has probably already tried it – and failed. That means you have to figure out exactly why the idea hasn’t already made it big, and what you can do differently to make it work.

For example, when LinkedIn got started, people were skeptical about the value it could offer its first users; with so few members in the network, what was to be gained? This is a typical problem for many start-ups.

Hoffman had a great solution, though. He developed a function that allowed new users to scan their e-mail address books for LinkedIn matches. They would then be shown a list of who was already on the network, as well as options to invite friends and colleagues to join. This network grew quickly, allowing its users to connect with more and more people.

Put inefficiently used resources toward creating new products, and react quickly to problems.

Did you know that many people spend less than five percent of their time driving their car? The other 95 percent of the time, it’s just parked somewhere, taking up space. Robin Chase realized how inefficient that type of car ownership was, and so she founded Zipcar – a car rental company that offers cars for an hourly rate.

You too can found a successful start-up by identifying inefficiently used resources and coming up with an efficient solution. Try imagining how we could use what we already have more efficiently, like Chase did.

Nurture enthusiastic long-term customers and healthy, highly motivated employees.

In 1998, Seth Goldman founded Honest Tea, a beverage company that sells organic, fair-trade, low-sugar tea. The company now makes more than $70 million in sales each year. So how did Goldman achieve such phenomenal success?

He realized early on that the company’s success didn’t just depend on him – it also depended on the enthusiasm and engagement of his employees and customers.

Always keep your eyes on future developments, and focus on the customer.

Hosain Rahman knows the value of looking to the future. He founded the wearable technology company Jawbone in 1999, long before wearable tech was a trend. And by cultivating a future-oriented mindset, he learned how to keep his company ahead of the game.

A key principle of the future-oriented mindset is that what worked yesterday won’t work today.

Key ideas in The Startup Playbook