Who is Peter Thiel? What success lessons can every entrepreneur can learn from him? Starting any business is time consuming and lengthy, but doing it right from the beginning isRead More
The post 5 Lessons Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Peter Thiel appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>Starting any business is time consuming and lengthy, but doing it right from the beginning is a lesson no one ever really learns. There is no formula for “doing it right” and there is no “right answer” to every question. The really successful business owners everyone wants to be like are the ones who work maybe one day a year and the rest of the time is theirs to do with as they wish. The best way to get to that place is to listen to these successful business owners and learn from what they have done.
One such business man is Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and investor in Facebook. His book Zero to One has been a smash hit and has a great amount of knowledge to share with readers. After learning more about Peter Thiel from Blake Masters, there are five really great and simple ideas found in their book. As a matter of fact these ideas are so simple one generally over looks them expecting some profound and life altering concept to pop out at them in the next chapter.
Five success lessons every entrepreneur can learn from Peter Thiel for beginning to lay the ground work for a new business followed with a basic definition of each:
Basically think outside the box. There are plenty of search engines and email accounts go for something different. Be unique in the search for your industry brain storm. Replicating other people’s ideas just causes market saturation, which drives down demand and then ultimately causes business to begin the downward spiral of the toilet. This is why, in Peter Thiel’s opinion, businesses fail. Make the business of your dreams truly unique and you can never fail.
Sounds the same as above but is completely different. One can be original and still be in the same market as the coffee shop next door. Bring something truly different to the table though. A personality is a nice place to start. Ever notice that the large chain coffee shops have barristers with personality and great attitudes? Yeah they do! Well that was a niche filled right there. Find the niche that needs filling and make a good fit. Make the originality seep from every pore of the business, play to your strengths and make sure that no one else has ever done it before.
That dreaded “M” word should not be dreaded. Monopoly +unique ideas=Money. That is truly what everyone is after in the business world money. It is what makes the world go round, and what pays the bills by the way. Answer some difficult question in the world, cater to some need which has been over looked too long and then run with it. Don’t open a restaurant in a city with six already you are not going to succeed. Don’t open a restaurant at all. Find a unique problem to solve in that town, find the answer to a question no one can answer open that instead. Work the business to grow quickly and be sustainable. This should be easy because you will be the only on in the market, right. So make it everything it should be from the beginning and success is just around the corner for you. OK so the plan you have isn’t very good and well you have no idea how it will work out and there are a ton of other excuses you can come up with. OK, quite but before you do tell someone else about the plan. They can do it then. Mr. Thiel believes that a bad plan is better than no plan, because a bad plan can be changed and evolve with the idea, no plan is instant death. Run with the bad plan until a better one shows itself. Then run with it. You are making a Monopoly; no one said it was going to be easy.
So no one understands what you are doing and no one else has ever worked on it before, awesome! That is the plan you want then. Back to number three for a moment, if no one else gets it then you are truly creating a Monopoly everyone will want in on in the future. Work it and take it to the next level. Create a plan good, bad, or otherwise and roll with it. Make it your baby and make it something that you can hang on to forever. Pass it down to children, grandchildren whichever but make it sustainable.
Always remember the future. Well isn’t that supposed to be” remember the past”? Sure if you want to fail. If you want to succeed remember the future. The future is what you are planning for; the future is what you should be looking too. Don’t spend too much time of the short term plan. Look at your long term goals 1 year, 5 years, 10 years and so forth.
Following these five rules can save a lot of time and headaches. Remember your goal is to work one day a year, this is only possible by listening to those who already do that.
Check out Blake Master’s interview about Peter Thiel and their book, Zero To One here
The post 5 Lessons Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Peter Thiel appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>A summary of things you should know about Zero To One according to Blake Masters: Introduction In this episode Blake Masters shares his book, Zero To One, where he andRead More
The post A Preview of Zero To One with Blake Masters appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>In this episode Blake Masters shares his book, Zero To One, where he and Peter Thiel reveal the strategy, secrets, and truth to find success that goes above and beyond.
In his book, Masters provides you with the insights of how Peter Thiel became so successful with his ventures such as PayPal. One of the core themes in the book is the distinction between competition and a business monopoly. Both Thiel and Masters believe that success is found in the absolute differentiation of one business to another and they pave the way for you follow the same suite.
This book is perfect for entrepreneurs who have an original idea and are seeking absolute command of a niche where competition does not exist.
We wanted to show clearly and forcefully what Peter knows about business and you can’t get this information form anywhere else.
You can read it front to back or read it as a resource and jump around.
I would tell people not to compete but rather do something unique.
In the first chapter we start by explaining what the title means. Zero to One is about doing new things, going from nothing and creating something where nothing existed before.
In chapter two we take a close look at the .com boom and bust of the 90’s which we think is how everybody today continues to think about business.
One of the core themes in the book is the distinction between competition and monopoly. Americans love competition and it’s become sort of like a secular religion but the message we portray in the book is that competition is not what you want to be focused on when you’re building a business. We think successful business is all about differentiation and differentiation at large is really monopoly.
About halfway, chapter six is called You Are Not a Lottery Ticket. This is a meditation on chance and luck and how far we’ve gravitated as a society towards explaining things purely in those terms. In America we are optimistic and chapter six is our call to reclaiming a definite attitude where we don’t just assume things are going to get better but we know that if you plan where you want to go then maybe you can actually get there.
We have a whole chapter on secrets which are our answers to what Peter calls his contrarian question, what very important truth do few people agree with you on. This seems like a very easy question but actually it’s really hard to answer. If you have the question you have to not only think out of the box but also have to be brave enough to tell someone that. Any truth about your business that no one else in your business knows we prefer to call that a secret because there is something about the terminology that captures people’s attention and makes them wonder.
In another chapter we talk about how to sell a product. Silicon Valley tends to be overweight product and underweight sales even though sales are just as important as the product. If you have a good product but not a good way to distribute it then you actually don’t have a good product. We make the claim that it is best to take distribution seriously and think of it as part of your product.
Chapter 12 is about computers and humans and how they relate to each other both now and in the future. We think that humans and computers are so different that they are mostly complimentary. We also think that the most valuable businesses in the coming years will be the ones who understand and leverage the complimentary nature of machines and humans.
Chapter 13 is a recap of the book formulated in seven questions that every startup has to get right.
We end the book with a chapter about founders and entrepreneurs. It’s important for founders to understand the position that they are in so that they can be affective.
“The smartphones that distract us from our surroundings also distract us from the fact that our surroundings are strangely old.” – Blake Masters
I live out in San Francisco with my wife and 4 month year old baby. I am the co-founded of a legal research technology startup called Judicata. Prior to that I was at law school at Stanford and worked as an early sales person at Box.
The book is based on a class that Peter Thiel taught at Stanford in 2012 call CS 183 Startup. Peter’s goal in teaching the class was to tell his students everything he knew about business. I took really good class notes and put them online and then they ended up getting read by hundreds of thousands of people and became basic required reading in Silicon Valley.
The Age of the Moguls by Stewart H. Holbrook
Buy Zero To One by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters on Amazon today
Visit ZeroToOneBook.com to learn more about Blake’s book
Visit BlakeMasters.com to learn more about Blake and his notes on Peter Thiel’s class
Follow Blake Masters on Twitter and Facebook
Download the full transcript here
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher , and SoundCloud
Related books: All In Startup by Diana Kander | Exponential Organizations by Salim Ismail | The Art of War for Small Business by Becky Sheetz-Runkle
Relevant advice and tips: 5 Important Things That Every Entrepreneur Needs To Know About Starting a New Business
What did you like and not like about this episode? Fill out this one minute survey here.
The post A Preview of Zero To One with Blake Masters appeared first on The Entrepreneurs Library.
]]>