Come up with 10 ideas a day. Every day. It does not matter if they are good or bad, the point is to exercise your idea muscle, to make it sweat. People say ideas are a dime a dozen but that is NOT true. Ideas are a dime for three, but if you try to come up with ten by opening this book to any page, you will feel your mind stretching, working, sweating. People say execution is everything, that is ALSO NOT true. Execution is a subset of ideas. When you exercise your idea muscle every day you become an idea machine, you are unstoppable. When a GREAT idea comes your way you are inspired, you feel moved, you HAVE to take the next step. Execution happens automatically. Try the 180 prompts in this book, list your ten ideas every day and see your life transform, in magical ways, in front of your eyes.

    Using new a way of marketing, called growth hacking, these startups have grown to millions of users and created billions of dollars in value, all without using the traditional marketing playbook. So how have companies like Uber, Square, Snapchat, Evernote, Hubspot, Github and Yelp grown? See for yourself in this ebook packed with the most in-depth case studies on exactly what strategies these companies used to unlock massive growth. Case studies included are: Uber Snapchat Square Upworthy Yelp GitHub Hubspot Evernote LinkedIn Belly Each case study shows you the specific strategies (we call them "growth engines") that these companies used to grow, both in the early stages and later in their development. From the growth hacks they used, to the unique growth playbooks they employed, you won't find a more detailed look at how startups achieve growth than through these case studies.

     They say you shouldn't ask your mom whether your business is a good idea, because she loves you and will lie to you. This is technically true, but it misses the point. You shouldn't ask anyone if your business is a good idea. It's a bad question and everyone will lie to you at least a little . As a matter of fact, it's not their responsibility to tell you the truth. It's your responsibility to find it and it's worth doing right .Talking to customers is one of the foundational skills of both Customer Development and Lean Startup. We all know we're supposed to do it, but nobody seems willing to admit that it's easy to screw up and hard to do right. This book is going to show you how customer conversations go wrong and how you can do better.

    New regulations are making the old go-to advice less relevant, as startup money is increasingly moving online. These new waters are all but uncharted—and founders need an accessible guide. This book helps you navigate the online world of startup fundraising with easy-to-follow explanations and expert perspective on the new digital world of finance. You'll find tips and tricks on raising money and investing in startups from early stage to growth stage, and develop a clear strategy based on the new realities surrounding today's startup landscape.The finance world is in a massive state of flux. Changes are occurring at an increasing pace in all sectors, but few more intensely than the startup sphere. When the paradigm changes, your processes must change with it. This book shows you how startup funding works, with expert coaching toward the new rules on the field.-Learn how the JOBS Act impacts the fundraising model-Gain insight on startups from early stage to growth stage-Find the money you need to get your venture going-Craft your pitch and optimize the strategy-Build momentum-Identify the right investors-Avoid the common mistakesDon't rely on the "how we did it" tales from superstar startups, as these stories are unique and applied to exceptional scenarios. The game has changed, and playing by the old rules only gets you left behind. Whether you're founding a startup or looking to invest, The Art of Startup Fundraising provides the up-to-the-minute guidance you need.PRAISE FOR THE ART OF STARTUP FUNDRAISING:“The Art of Startup Fundraising is a must read for anyone who even considers starting a business. Fundraising is hard. This book gives you the roadmap to get where you are going. Alejandro Cremades speaks with wisdom and from experience.“ - Tim Draper , Founder of Draper Associates, DFJ, and Draper University."The Art of Startup Fundraising should be a mandatory reading for entrepreneurs that are looking to raise capital. This book will enable Alejandro to help many more early stage companies answer the tough questions when fundraising." - Marco Landi, Former Chief Operating Officer at Apple and Chairman at Atlantis Ventures"Raising capital is often the most daunting and least understood aspects of starting a new business and there are few people more experienced than Alejandro Cremades to act as a guide. The Art of Startup Fundraising unlocks key secrets of fundraising for newly minted entrepreneurs." - Jeff Stibel, Chairman of BrainGate, Inc. and Vice Chairman of Dun & Bradstreet, Inc.; New York Times bestselling author of Breakpoint and Wired for Thought."This book provides a clear, concise tour of the fundraising game. With his crowdfunding and entrepreneurial expertise in full display, Cremades does a terrific job making a complicated process simple and accessible." - Jeff Bussgang, General Partner at Flybridge Capital Partners and Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School“Entrepreneurs need to be amazing at recruiting, selling and fundraising. The Art of Startup Fundraising provides the essential toolkit for mastering a core skill for any entrepreneur.” - Gil Penchina, serial entrepreneur and prolific angel investor“For many entrepreneurs finding the right investor for their venture can be a daunting task. Alejandro's experience with equity crowdfunding gives a unique perspective on the fundraising game. The Art of Startup Fundraising is very insightful for entrepreneurs looking to close a round of financing and changing the world.” - Anyndya Ghose, Professor at NYU Stern School of Business“There is no perfect approach to raising investment for a startup, but there is a certain tribal knowledge out there, that most of us had to learn through several failed attempts. The Art of Startup Fundraising captures every bit of advice (and then some!) that I would give to any entrepreneur looking for funding.” - Paul Murphy, Partner at Betaworks and CoFounder of Playdots“Alejandro's The Art of Startup Fundraising is a must read for any entrepreneur. Clear and concise, he outlines in today's startup community the steps to successfully fundraise. This is the golden era for entrepreneurs, any good idea with proof of concept can get access to money. Know your options!” - Angelo J. Robles, Founder and CEO of Family Office Association“It doesn't matter how great of a business you can build. If you can't raise money, you're toast. Master this book.” - Ilya Pozin, Forbes Contributor and CoFounder of Pluto TV and CoFounder of Coplex"The Art of Startup Fundraising translates art into science. By sharing proven formulas, strategies, and case studies that work, Alejandro Cremades provides a needed service to future entrepreneurs." - Josh Cohen, Managing Partner at City Light Capital“This ought to be a reading requirement for all entrepreneurs when building a business and raising capital. This is a very well written and informative book, written by a man who is a testament to dedication and creativity when confronted with the challenges of being an entrepreneur and raising capital.” - Carter Caldwell, serial entrepreneur and Principal at Cross Atlantic Capital Partners“Alejandro is on the bleeding edge of equity crowdfunding today. When he talks about fundraising, startups listen.” - Andrew Ackerman, Managing Director at Dreamit Ventures“Raising capital can be tough. Alejandro provides a step-by-step guidebook to all entrepreneurs that rather spend their time thinking about changing the world instead of thinking of how to raise funds.” - Tobias P. Schirmer, Managing Partner of JOIN Capital "A superb book on fundraising. Alejandro's guidance should arm entrepreneurs with the necessary tools to close with success a meaningful round of financing." - Ellen Weber, Executive Director at Robin Hood Ventures“The Art of Startup Fundraising is a practical and comprehensive resource for entrepreneurs to use again and again. It captures what startups need to do to be successful in the rapidly evolving financing world, while also providing tips on the fundamentals of building businesses that don’t change over time.” - Marianne Hudson, Executive Director at Angel Capital Association“Raising money is hard. But start-up founders all over the world can make it exponentially easier by educating themselves on the process of raising equity capital before they dive into it. The practical, hands-on advice from Alejandro Cremades in this book provides a solid foundation in that self-education process. Delivered in an approachable format with a key lesson to take-away every few pages, “The Art of Startup Fundraising” is essential reading for entrepreneurs everywhere.” - Allen Taylor, Managing Director at Endeavor

    She stared at a long list of logistics--from hiring to firing, from meeting to messaging, from planning to pitching--and faced a thousand questions and uncertainties. How was she supposed to spin teamwork into value? How could she be a good steward of her reports' careers? What was the secret to leading with confidence in new and unexpected situations?Now, having managed dozens of teams spanning tens to hundreds of people, Julie knows the most important lesson of all: great managers are made, not born. If you care enough to be reading this, then you care enough to be a great manager.The Making of a Manager is a modern field guide packed everyday examples and transformative insights, including:* How to tell a great manager from an average manager (illustrations included) * When you should look past an awkward interview and hire someone anyway * How to build trust with your reports through not being a boss * Where to look when you lose faith and lack the answersWhether you're new to the job, a veteran leader, or looking to be promoted, this is the handbook you need to be the kind of manager you wish you had.

    UNLEASH YOUR DREAM.Tired of sleepwalking through a mediocre life bribed by mindless video-gaming, redemptive weekends, and a scant paycheck from a soul-suffocating job? Welcome to the SCRIPTED club-- where membership is neither perceived or consented.The fact is, ever since you've been old enough to sit obediently in a classroom, you have been culturally engineered for servitude, unwittingly enslaved into a Machiavellian system where illusionary rules go unchallenged, sanctified traditions go unquestioned, and lifelong dreams go unfulfilled. As a result, your life is hijacked and marginalised into debt, despair, and dependence. Life's death sentence becomes the daily curse of the trivial and mundane. Fun fades. Dreams die. Don't let life's consolation prize become a car and a weekend.Recapture what is yours and make a revolutionary repossession of life-and-liberty through the pursuit of entrepreneurship. A paradigm shift isn't needed--the damn paradigm needs to be thrown-out altogether.The truth is, if you blindly follow conventional wisdom pushed by conventional people living conventional lives, can you expect to be anything but conventional? Rewrite life's script: ditch the job, give Wall Street the bird, and escape the insanity of trading your life away for a paycheck and an elderly promise called retirement. UNSCRIPT today and start leading life-- instead of life leading you.

    While seemingly harmless, the question has unintended consequences. It can make you feel like you need to choose one job, one passion, one thing to be about. Guess what? You don't.Having a lot of different interests, projects and curiosities doesn't make you a "jack-of-all-trades, master of none." Your endless curiosity doesn't mean you are broken or flaky. What you are is a multipotentialite: someone with many interests and creative pursuits. And that is actually your biggest strength.How to Be Everything helps you channel your diverse passions and skills to work for you. Based on her popular TED talk, "Why some of us don't have one true calling", Emilie Wapnick flips the script on conventional career advice. Instead of suggesting that you specialize, choose a niche or accumulate 10,000 hours of practice in a single area, Wapnick provides a practical framework for building a sustainable life around ALL of your passions.You'll discover:•  Why your multipotentiality is your biggest strength, especially in today's uncertain job market.•  How to make a living and structure your work if you have many skills and interests.•  How to focus on multiple projects and make progress on all of them.•  How to handle common insecurities such as the fear of not being the best, the guilt associated with losing interest in something you used to love and the challenge of explaining "what you do" to others. Not fitting neatly into a box can be a beautiful thing. How to Be Everything teaches you how to design a life, at any age and stage of your career, that allows you to be fully you, and find the kind of work you'll love.

    He started by reaching out to people he admired, searching for mentors, and applying his past coaches' advice from sports to life off the field. Lewis did more than bounce back: He built a multimillion-dollar online business and is now a sought-after business coach, speaker, and podcast host.In The School of Greatness, Howes shares the essential tips and habits he gathered in interviewing "the greats" on his wildly popular podcast of the same name. In discussion with people like Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson and Pencils of Promise CEO Adam Braun, Howes figured out that greatness is unearthed and cultivated from within. The masters of greatness are not successful because they got lucky or are innately more talented, but because they applied specific habits and tools to embrace and overcome adversity in their lives.A framework for personal development, The School of Greatness gives you the tools, knowledge, and actionable resources you need to reach your potential. Howes anchors each chapter with a specific lesson he culled from his greatness "professors" and his own experiences to teach you how to create a vision, develop hustle, and use dedication, mindfulness, joy, and love to reach goals. His lessons and practical exercises prove that anyone is capable of achieving success and that we can all strive for greatness in our everyday lives.

    Or what Steve Case might have done for PepsiCo if he hadn’t left for a gaming start-up that eventually became AOL. What if Salomon Brothers had kept Michael Bloomberg, or Bear Stearns had exploited the inventive ideas of Stephen Ross?Scores of top-tier entrepreneurs worked for established corporations before they struck out on their own and became self-made billionaires. People like Mark Cuban, John Paul DeJoria, Sara Blakely, and T. Boone Pickens all built businesses—in some cases, multiple businesses—that are among today’s most iconic brands. This fact raises two profound questions: Why couldn’t their former employers hang on to to these extraordinarily talented people? And why are most big companies unable to create as much new value as the world’s roughly 800 self-made billionaires?John Sviokla and Mitch Cohen decided to look more closely at self-made billionaires because creating $1 billion or more in value is an incredible feat. Drawing on extensive research and interviews, the authors concluded that many of the myths perpetuated about billionaires are simply not true. These billionaires aren’t necessarily smarter, harder working, or luckier than their peers. They aren’t all prodigies, crossing the billionaire finish line in their twenties. Nor, most of the time, do they create something brand-new: More than 80 percent of the billionaires in the research sample earned their billions in highly competitive industries.The key difference is what the authors call the “Producer” mind-set, in contrast with the far more pervasive “Performer” mind-set. Performers strive to excel in well-defined areas, and are important. But Producers are critical to any company looking to create massive value because they redefine what’s possible, rather than simply meeting preexisting goals and standards. Combining sound judgment with imaginative vision, Producers think up entirely new products, services, strategies, and business models.Big companies tend to reward Performers and discourage the unconventional ways of Producers. But it’s the latter who integrate multiple ideas, perspectives, and actions, and who trust their insights enough to make game-changing bets.This book breaks down the five critical habits of mind of massive value-creators, so you can learn how to identify, encourage, and retain such individuals—and maybe even become one yourself. The Self-made Billionaire Effect will forever change the way you think about talent and business value.

    Simplify, focus, and win by outperforming all your competition on those things that create real value for the customer. This is about substance, not flash, and the ultimate wow factors of high quality performance, consistency and relentless improvement.Thought provoking questions, activities, and action steps are built into every section of the book Author Joe Calloway, an International Speakers Hall of Fame inductee, has been a popular business speaker for thirty years and worked with hundreds of companies to help them create and sustain success Be the Best at What Matters Most will help you and your team focus on taking the actions that maximize results, growth, and profit.

    People don't listen to advertisements, they listen to their peers. But why do people talk about certain products and ideas more than others? Why are some stories and rumors more infectious? And what makes online content go viral? Wharton marketing professor Jonah Berger has spent the last decade answering these questions. He's studied why New York Times articles make the paper's own Most E-mailed List, why products get word of mouth, and how social influence shapes everything from the cars we buy to the clothes we wear to the names we give our children. In this book, Berger reveals the secret science behind word-of-mouth and social transmission. Discover how six basic principles drive all sorts of things to become contagious, from consumer products and policy initiatives to workplace rumors and YouTube videos.Contagious combines groundbreaking research with powerful stories. Learn how a luxury steakhouse found popularity through the lowly cheese-steak, why anti-drug commercials might have actually increased drug use, and why more than 200 million consumers shared a video about one of the seemingly most boring products there is: a blender. If you've wondered why certain stories get shared, e-mails get forwarded, or videos go viral, Contagious explains why, and shows how to leverage these concepts to craft contagious content. This book provides a set of specific, actionable techniques for helping information spread - for designing messages, advertisements, and information that people will share. Whether you're a manager at a big company, a small business owner trying to boost awareness, a politician running for office, or a health official trying to get the word out, Contagious will show you how to make your product or idea catch on.

    Business Model You uses the same powerful one-page tool to teach readers how to draw "personal business models," which reveal new ways their skills can be adapted to the changing needs of the marketplace to reveal new, more satisfying, career and life possibilities. Produced by the same team that created Business Model Generation, this book is based on the Business Model Canvas methodology, which has quickly emerged as the world's leading business model description and innovation technique.This book shows readers how to:Understand business model thinking and diagram their current personal business model Understand the value of their skills in the marketplace and define their purpose Articulate a vision for change Create a new personal business model harmonized with that vision, and most important, test and implement the new model When you implement the one-page tool from Business Model You, you create a game-changing business model for your life and career.

     In "How to Get Rich," British mogul Felix Dennis told the engaging story of how he started a media empire and became one of the wealthiest men in Britain-all without a college degree or any formal training. Now he shows readers exactly what it takes to start a business and make it successful. Dennis offers a pithy guide for those determined to attempt what he calls the getting of money-regardless of the consequences. His eighty-eight tips include: ? Do not fall in love with any project. You may believe in it wholeheartedly, but must remain prepared to abandon it should it show signs of failing. ? If you are unwilling to fail, sometimes publicly and even catastrophically, you will never be rich. ? You will never get rich working for your boss. No one knows better than Dennis what it takes to get rich, and his battle-tested advice-delivered with his signature wit-will surely appeal to serious entrepreneurs.

    The world's leading guide to raising money online, The Crowdfunding Bible shows you how to launch, market and successfully run a high-tech fundraising campaign, regardless of industry or budget. It reveals the secrets to catching the media and public's eye, and attracting donors, in a language that everyone can understand. From books to films, albums, events and consumer products and video games, dive in to discover the new world of venture capital waiting at your fingertips. FEATURES: Best Crowdfunding Sites and Services / Full Guides: How to Start & Promote Any Project / Expert Tips and Advice / PR and Social Media Strategies / Advice from Top Creators.

    S. Air Force, Dan Ward explored these questions during tours of duty at military research laboratories, the Air Force Institute of Technology, an intelligence agency, the Pentagon and Afghanistan. The pattern he noticed revealed that the most successful project leaders in both the public and private sectors delivered top-shelf products with a skeleton crew, a shoestring budget, and a cannonball schedule. Excessive investment of time, money or complexity actually reduced innovation. He concluded the secret to innovation is to be fast, inexpensive, simple, and small.FIRE presents an entertaining and practical framework for pursuing rapid, frugal innovation. A story-filled blend of pop culture and engineering insight, FIRE has something for everyone: strategic concepts leaders can use as they cast a vision, actionable principles for managers as they make business decisions, and practical tools for workers as they design, build, assess and test new products. Plus, there's a funny story about buying a dishwasher.