#98/111: The Passionate Programmer

What is it about?

Most people are mediocre at their job. Some are not like Chad Fowler how talks about being remarkable. This doesn’t only apply to programmers, it applies to every kind of occupation.

What can I learn?

Don’t be a jerk: This one is actually a pretty important thing to learn for programmers. I know a lot of them and many think that people who don’t understand how to program are inferior. They like their tech talk and they isolate their selves from the rest of the company. I don’t know if people can learn this that fast but maybe it’s an beginning. Stop talking tech talk if you talk with non-tech people. They don’t care about every minute detail. They got problems and want them solved. Think more about them and how you can solve their problems.

Learn about business: The next step is to open yourself to new areas like business. You may laugh about sales persons but they make the money. You don’t have to be friends with business people, however it is recommended. Learn about what they are doing. How that accounting work. What do the marketing people do? This insight is extremely valuable among software devs because most of them know a thing about such stuff. You will learn about new problems, new solutions and new persons.

Market yourself: If you realized that there are people out there who actually appreciate if you help them solve their problems and became less a jerk, then it’s maybe time to market yourself actively. An easy way is to start a blog. Write about what you doing, about solutions for problems that you encountered. A big blog will often lead to some invitations to conferences or book deals.

Conclusion

A great book for every specialist. It doesn’t matter if you’re a biochemist, software dev or designer, a lot of tips will help you to build a remarkable career for yourself.

#74.0/111: My Life in Advertising

What is it about?

This book is actually two. My Life in Advertising, the autobiography of Claude C. Hopkins and his famous publication Scientific Advertising. In this post I will review My Life in Advertising.

What can I learn?

Fun is subjective: Claude C. Hopkins was raised in a highly religious household. His mother forbid him seeing plays or playing cards, because she believed that these are diabolic activities. Therefore, he looked for other activities and began cleaning at his school and distributing fliers. He said: “The only game I’ve ever learned is business.”. It’s his occupation and recreation.

Simple, natural ads with a coupon: His most successful ads followed this scheme. Firstly, he said that he was raised as a simple man, so he could only sell to other simple man, which were the majority. Secondly, the ads were natural, i.e. no lies, no marketing speech. Often he described how something was created and built a campaign on this obvious fact. For example, he created a campaign for Schlitz Beer in which he described how everything was cleaned twice a day and the bottles were washed four times. This was industry standard but nobody ever used it in an ad before. Thirdly, he inserted coupons for free samples because he wants to decrease the prospects risk and truly convince them that the product is excellent.

His great mistake: There is a chapter called My Great Mistake where he talks about don’t starting a company on his own. Many of his former scholars, i.e. which learned from him how to create great advertising, started their own companies and succeeded. He said that he never had enough self-confidence. After many years working for other people and agencies, he finally decided to start his own businesses which were successful. However, he thinks that this isn’t an advice for the majority. Everyone should decide on his own where he fits and what he wants.

Conclusion

I truly enjoyed My Life in Advertising. This is an other vintage classic from 1927 and most observations are still true today. It’s interesting how he worked his way up from a fruit picker. Then decided to get a degree in accounting. There he realized that accounting is just a overhead and costs will always be minimized. Therefore he started to switch to the money earners, i.e. into advertising. In the last chapter he wrote that he helps juvenile delinquents to love work as he do which is impressive for this time. All in all a great biography. Recommendation.

#57/111: The New Business Road Test

What is it about?

How can you increase your probably of success? John Mullins takes a scientific-like way to explore why startups fail and how it can be fixed. Each major point is illustrated by case studies and a short section “what investors want to know”.

What can I learn?

What are your goals? Before starting you should define your goals. Do you want to build a multi million dollars company or a lifestyle business? Do you want to work 80h/w or rather 25? This is the general framework to later decisions.

Market and Industry: Often these two things are not really understood. Your market exists of your customers. Your Industries are your competitors. Often there are great markets but the industry sucks. A example are restaurants. There are a mass of people who have to eat every day but the industry is gigantic and competitive. There are lots of restaurants or people could cook for themselves. That is, you market should be acceptable and your industry.

Obey the Critical Success Factors: If you have chosen your market and industry, you have to identify the industry’s Critical Success Factors (CSF). What is really important in your industry? For example, you can’t build a successful news site if you don’t have topical and good content.

Choose a great management team: Your management team should be complementary to you. Firstly, you have to know your strengths and weaknesses. If you suck at finance look for a smart CFO. If you suck at managing people, look for a smart COO/CEO. You don’t have to do anything for yourself and probably better don’t.

Conclusion

This is a pretty good book. The New Business Road Test is well structured and each chapter includes case studies which support Mullins’ assumptions about starting a successful business. The book is very practical and definitely worth reading if you want to start a business. Recommendation!

#51/111: Predictable Success

What is it about?

What are the ingredients for a successful business? Les McKown thinks money, people and structure. You can see a illustration of his business cycle theory below. On the x-axis is time and on the y-axis success.

(Picture from Les McKown’s Blog)

What can I learn?

Whitewater: While you are growing things get more complex. Your company slows down. To get to the next stage you have to introduce some processes and structure to manage your company.

Predictable Success: In this stage there is a equilibrium between entrepreneurial zeal and structure. This is the ideal state and theoretically you can be in this stage forever. An important key attribute in this stage is ownership and self-accountability, i.e. your employees are accountable for results. You focus on people instead on processes.

Treadmill: Your company gets into this stage if processes take over risk taking and entrepreneurial zeal. Processes become more important than people and individual gaols. To get back to predictable success you have to cultivate personal development. Focus on results rather than on compliances.

Conclusion

At the beginning, Les McKeown writes that he became an accountant and learned that financing are is the most important factor for a company. I was really disturbed and though: That’s why accountants don’t start companies. However, later he revised his answer. In Predictable Success, McKeown describes each stage thoughtfully and with examples. It’s a real pleasure to read this book because he tells a lot of his own experiences as a business owner and consultant. A clear recommendation for everyone who want to know how to a company transforms over time and how to achieve predictable success.