The Minimalist Entrepreneur
Sahil Lavingia
Summary
A How to on building a modern sustainable tech business
Rating: 4/5
Notes
Create profitable businesses at all costs
Build on a foundation of community
Build only what you need to, outsource the rest
Share your stories from struggle to success
Creator first, entrepreneur second
Contribute, create and teach the community
Work in public. Teach everything you know. Create every day.
There’s no such thing as an overnight success.
Think about the problems you face every day
Productize your process to make yourself redundant
Focus on your first 100 customers
For pricing, don’t start too low. Goal is eventually to get tiered service
When working at the beginning, make a list of everyone who has written or shared about the business, contact all of them, ask for their personal and candid feedback
Manual sales will be 99% of growth in the early days and word of mouth will be 99% of growth in the later years
Don’t spend money initially on marketing. Focus on your audience
Educate, inspire then entertain
Always keep costs below revenue
Pay yourself as little as possible in the beginning
Even as you grow, always keep the customer in mind
Define your company values early and often
Build the right business for yourself selfishly while serving a community of others selflessly
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Free E-book download here
Make Something Wonderful
Steve Jobs
Summary
The life of Steve Jobs in his own words
Rating: 5/5
Notes
Make something wonderful and put it out there
‘You appear, have a chance to blaze in the sky, then you disappear’
When you’re a stranger in a place, you notice thing you don’t otherwise (Jobs after India trip)
Whenever you start with nothing, always shoot for the moon. You have nothing to lose.
You never achieve what you want without falling on your face a few times
Never be afraid to fail. You never achieve what you want without falling flat on your face a few times
We are never taught to listen to our intuitions, to develop and nurture them. But if you do pay attention to these subtle insights, you can make them come true
Creativity equals connecting previously unrelated experiences and insights others don’t see
Believe that some of what you follow with your heart will come back and make your life richer. And it will. And you will gain even firmer trust on your instincts and intuitions
Make your avocation your vocation. Make what you love your work.
The journey is the reward. The reward isn’t in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it’s in crossing the rainbow
To find A+ talent, if experienced, look at their track record and results
The world we know is a human creation and we can push it forward
The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do (read whole ad ‘here’s to the crazy ones)
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit - Aristotle
Hire people better than you are
You can’t plan to meet the people who will change your life
It’s impossible to connect the dots looking forward, but they make sense looking backwards so you have to trust the dots will somehow connect in your future
Everything around you that you call life was made up by people no smarter than you
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Free E-book download here
