Wise entrepreneurs learn from both the failures and the successes of their peers, so I was glad to hear about Sramana Mitra’s latest project, a book called Entrepreneur Journeys. Sramana writes a column for Forbes, runs a strategy consultancy and blogs about the intersection of technology and entrepreneurship, so she had a lot of raw material from which to craft this collection of interviews with successful CEOs.
In her book, Mitra draws on her strengths and experiences as the founder of three tech companies, as well as relationships she’s built over more than a decade with successful start-up executives, venture capitalists and journalists. Entrepreneur Journeys details her conversations with a number of company founders, melding their stories with her analysis of common themes and key strategies or decisions that were critical to their ultimate success. The anecdotes in this book are grouped by topics nearly every CEO can relate to, such as:
• Bootstrapping vs. institutional funding: Sridhar Vembu, CEO of AdventNet, and Jerry Rawls, CEO of Finisar
• Taking on industry giants: Steve Hafner, CEO of Kayak; Gautam Godhwant, CEO of SimplyHired; and Russ Fradin, CEO of Adify
• Distruptive business models: Philippe Courtot, CEO of Qualys, and Steve Singh, CEO of Concur
I won’t spoil the read—you can find Entrepreneur Journeys at Amazon. For those of you who are veteran CEOs, you find resonant material and much to admire in the paths of the determined, and ultimately victorious, executives whose tales fill this first volume of a planned series. If you’re contemplating a technology start-up, or in the early phases, there is much to digest, consider, and leverage.
A few takeaway messages:
• For most early stage start-ups, MItra believes bootstrapping, rather than venture funding, is preferable. My reaction is that, while this may often be the case, financing strategy is a difficult and sometimes dangerous thing about which to generalize. I agree entirely that the process of competing for venture capital is a) arduous; b) requires a willingness to have one’s bedrock assumptions challenged, and c) may not always lead to the same long-term outcome as if a business is built and grown with severely constrained capital.
• Each of the individuals profiled could be described as an “unconventional mind”—someone who displayed a willingness to buck the system, whether taking on the established category killer, traditional notions of industry economics, etc. I note that many were in one way or another outsiders, whether immigrants or just plain geeks. Perhaps a critical factor in these success stories is a level of comfort operating without the implicit societal approval, in order to imagine and then achieve an outrageous goal.
This essence of entrepreneurship—an unshakable belief in the art of the possible—has obviously fueled the companies and executives profiled in Entrepreneur Journeys. A myriad of others—ours and yours–have stories yet to be written.
Posted by expertceo 
