The Art of the Start/Kawasaki 63-68

65 The problem is that so many pitches sound alike because they all make the same claims.

67 MAT (Milestones, assumptions, and tasks)…is the most useful guide for the day-to-day operation of an organization.

Organizations are successful because of implementation, not good business plans.

Biz plan…in the later, due diligence stage of courting an investor, the investor will ask for one. It’s part of the game—a business plan has to be in the file.

68 Biz plan. Even if your aren’t trying to raise money, you should write one anyway.

A good business plan is a detailed version of a pitch.

Few sophisticated investors will read a business plan as the first step.

Survival is Not Enough/Godin 139-140

140 …employees who use feedback to independently change their actions and improve their performance. They could create an environment in which individuals are rewarded for constantly (and consistently) modifying their behavior in order to increase whatever is being measured.

We act like serfs because we’re genetically attuned to it, socially motivated to do it and often have no choice because of limited job opportunities. The combination of rapid change with technology, though, is going to take a big chunk out of the size of the surf population, pushing many of these workers into (potentially) more fulfilling and higher-impact jobs as farmers.

141 The problem with serfs is that they will inevitable slow down your business. You will always have undersupply or oversupply, and it will be your problem, not someone else’s.

The big successes will go to those who can evolve faster and leverage more valuable assets.

Intellectual Capital/Stewart 32-36

34 It is characteristic for knowledge companies to strip their balance sheets of fixed assets.

The knowledge company doesn’t care about owning assets. In fact, the fewer assets the better; so long as it has intellectual capital, the company can get the revenues without the burden and expenses of managing and paying for assets.

36 Knowledge companies don’t want assets.

The more differentiated and proprietary the work, the more likely you should own the assets it requires.

For a lot of asset-intensive businesses, like real estate, chemicals, or steel, making money will be tougher because they have so much money tied up in their physical assets.

Never Eat Alone/Ferrazzi 289-294

291 …the more everything becomes connected to everything and everyone else, the more we begin to depend on whom and what we’re connected with.

But community and alliances will rule in the 21st century.

…success…it’s dependent on whom you know and how you work with them. We’ve rediscovered that the real key to profit is working well with other people.

292 Life is about work, work is about life, and both are about people.

We’re giving our loyalty and our trust not to companies but to our peers.

294 Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Those rewards create almost as many problems as they solve. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter so the world will at least be a little bit different for our having passed through it.

The Art of the Start/Kawasaki 62-63

63 PowerPoint is a Swiss Army knife for entrepreneurs.

Tips
1) Use a dark background.
2) Add your logo to the master page…appear on every slide.
3) Use common, sans serif finds…you can never go wrong with arial.
4) Animate your body, not your slides…communicate expressiveness, emotions, and enthusiasm.
5) Build Bullets. Build your bullets: click, bullet 1, explain; click, bullet 2, explain; click, bullet 3, explain.
6) Use only one level of bullets
7) Add diagrams and graphs
8) Make printable slides.

Survival is Not Enough/Godin 135-139

138 As fast feedback loop is a simple concept—knowing as soon as possible whether something is working or not.

For companies trying to evolve, a large number of serfs is perhaps the largest single impediment to change.

139 In companies that are struggling with change, a large serf class is frequently one of the forces dragging the company, forcing it to act more slowly.

…just to get a good at the process of making tiny changes without getting stressed about it.

Intellectual Capital/Stewart 28-32

29 …it’s essential to learning how to compete with knowledge.

31 Knowledge and information take on their own reality, which can be detached from the physical movement of goods and services. From this divergence come at least two important implications. First, knowledge and the assets that create and distribute it can be managed, just as physical and financial assets can be. Second, If knowledge is the greatest source of wealth, then individuals, companies, and nations should invest in the assets that produce and process knowledge.

32 Understanding that one can manage the shadow, the information flow, can be an enormous source of efficiency and profit.

The insight that gave reengineering its primary source of value was the strands of information, when they are disentangled from the movement of products and services, can be managed much more efficiently than when the two are bound up with one another.

The knowledge company travels light. When information has replaced stockpiles of inventory and when it has left its material body and taken on a business life of its own, a company ultimately becomes a different kind of creature. A traditional company is a collection of physical assets, bought and owned by capitalists who are responsible for maintaining them, and who hire people to operate them.

Never Eat Alone/Ferrazzi 282-289

283 …as you play the role of both master and apprentice in a powerful constellation of people all simultaneously teaching and being taught.

287…the best thing about a relationship-driven career is that it isn’t a career at all.

288 When you’re balanced, you’ll be joyful enthusiastic, and full of gratitude.

And that life is all about the people we live it with.

289 You can’t feel in love with your life if you hate your work; and more times than not, people don’t love their work because they work with people they don’t like.

The Art of the Start/Kawasaki 57-62

58 You raise a good point, Can we follow up with you on that?

Every company says that their market is $50 billion…solution…start with the $50 billion number and peel away the layers of the onion until you arrive at the realistic “total addressable market”

61 I think the COO is a quality guy.

62 After ten or so pitches, through away your presentation…and start over.
It’s when your are totally familiar and comfortable with your pitch that you’ll be able to give it most effectively

Survival is Not Enough/Godin 128-135

132 Build a permission asset

134 It takes a wizard to see that a company ought to reinvent itself on top of a new technology or by acquiring a fast-moving but smaller firm.

It’s much more natural to evolve constantly than to undergo painful shifts on a regular basis.

The zooming organization that reaches runaway becomes unstoppable when it comes time to implement the wizard’s changes.

Little changes are good practice for big changes.

135 The goal of most large companies is to pay serfs as little as possible, all the while working to replace them with machines.

Intellectual Capital/Stewart 25 -28

26 Victories of information over inventory are transforming business after business

GE Lighting has since 1987 closed twenty-six of thirty-four U.S. warehouses and replaced twenty-five customer service centers with one new, high-tech operation. In effect, those buildings and stockpiles—physical assets—have been replaced by network and databases—intellectual assets.

28 Amazon is, essentially, a catalog—a database—offering access to books held by wholesalers and publishers.

There’s a simple but powerful lesson to be drawn from this catalog of the ways in which knowledge companies use information to beat back inventory: every bin of parts, every pallet of raw material, every uncollected bill, every piece of paper in transit from one person’s in box to another ties up time and money to no useful purpose. It’s “working capital” to an accountant—and driving it out is one of the first ways in which investments in information and knowledge can boost corporate performance.

Never Eat Alone/Ferrazzi 278-282

280 …it taught me the importance of attaching yourself to great people, great teachers.

281…when the process kicks in, you have to mold your mentor into a coach; someone for whom your success is in some small or big way his success.

The best way to approach utility is to give help first, and not ask for it.

282…mentors are all around you

Mentoring is a nonhierarchical activity that transcends careers and can cross all organizational levels.

The Art of the Start/Kawasaki 47-57

48 A pitch can’t be too short because a good one will motivate listeners to ask question that extend it. (Ten slides, 20 minutes, 30 point font text)

49 You want to communicate “enough,” not everything.

For partnering, the next step is meeting with more people within the organization.

The purpose of a pitch is to stimulate interest, not close the deal.

56 The first words out of your mouth in the pitch should be.
1) How much of your time may I have?
2) What are the three most important things I can communicate to you?
3) May I quickly go through my PowerPoint presentation and handle questions at the end?

57 In a pitch, the CEO should do 80 percent of the talking.

Survival is Not Enough/Godin 125-128

126 Bullies make it hard to zoom…if you stand up to a bully, you’ll somehow hurt yourself and the organization, and ignorance about the best way to deal with the bully. The thing is, most bullies are bullies because they’re scared. A bully-free company is faster, smarter, more profitable and more fun.

127 Your customers do a lot to determine your company’s mDNA.

128 Every time you interact with clients, you swap memes with them.

If you determine that your future success as an organization lies in your ability to adapt to changes in the competitive environment, then you’ll need clients that agree with you. Every time you take money from a client, you’re swapping mDNA, and if their mDNA is slowing you down, you’re trading your future success for today’s revenue.

Intellectual Capital/Stewart 21-25

23 Information technology speeds up activities…such as
Mining valuable detail
Running simulations
Making a business out of knowledge itself

24…found that a dollar spent on R&D returned eight times more than a dollar spent on new machinery. A new machine helps you do old work better; it delivers incremental improvement. R&D leads to innovation—whole new products and services that presumably are of a higher value that the ones they replace.

One of the information’s most powerful advantages is its ability to wipe out inventory.

25…Japanese automobile industry clobbered Detroit. Lacking both money and space, the Japanese turned away from capital-intensive, U.S.-style automaking ad invented an information-intensive industry. (JIT)

Never Eat Alone/Ferrazzi 275-278

276 If you hang with successful people, you’re more likely to become successful yourself.

277 I remembered that my father and mother had told me to speak less in such situations; the less you say, the more you’ll likely to hear.

278 There’s also no better way to signal your interest in becoming a mentee. People tacitly notice your respect and are flattered by the attention. That said, quiet for me isn’t exactly quiet. I asked tons of questions, suggested things that I saw from the summer, and conspired with these leaders of the firm on what was important to them---making the firm a success

The Art of the Start/Kawasaki 44-47

45 The gist of pitching is to get off to a fast start.

What does his organization do?...Answer that question in the first minute.

46 Every time you make a statement, imagine the little man’s asking his question. (So what?) After you answer it, follow with the two most powerful working in a pitch: “For instance,…”

So what? with For instance,…”

47 The foundation of a great pitch is the research that you do before the meeting starts.

First, learn what’s important to your audience.
Second, visit the organization’s Web site…organization background, executives, current efforts.

Survival is Not Enough/Godin 119-125

122 Remember that the reason you did the acquisition is to acquire mDNA may help your management team hesitate before they go out of their way to eliminate the very thing you just bought.

123 Treat the acquired people like heroes. Give them important, executive positions. Listen to their opinions right away, not in a year or two after they’ve proven their loyalty.

125 By exposing your organization to people carrying memes you’d like to incorporate, you’re likely to lose some individually (the mutations will be shunned)

This form of corporate sex is one of the most powerful available to management. There’s probably no faster way to alter a company’s mDNA than to fire the right people.