The Entrepreneur’s Bookshelf: Building Successful Companies

We finally hit our 100th post. We have talked about a successful and innovative company in the previous post. I would like to explore the theme of successful companies in this blog entry. I want to talk about two books and recommend to those who are intending to build great companies in the future.

Built To Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras

I like the first line from the preface of the book which states, “We believe every CEO, manager and entrepreneur in the world should read this book. So should every board member, consultant, investor, journalist, business student and anyone else interested in the distinguishing characteristics off the world’s most enduring and successful corportations. We made the this bold claim not because we wrote this book, but because of what these companies have to teach.”

In this book, the authors develop a framework to study the lessons one can extract from institutions which have created value and impact over the past few decades. One thing I do like about the book is the twelve myths which they shatter at the beginning. I thought that it might be good to share these myths with our audience here:

1. It takes a great idea to start a great company
2. Visionary companies require great and charismatic visionary leaders.
3. The most successful companies exist first and foremost to maximize profits.
4. Visionary companies share a common subset of “correct” core values.
5. The only constant is change
6. Blue-chip companies play it safe.
7. Visionary companies are great places to work for everyone.
8. Highly successful companies make their best moves by brilliant and complex strategic planning.
9. Companies should hire outside CEOs to stimulate fundamental change.
10. The most successful companies focus primarily on beating the competition.
11. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
12. Companies become visionary primiarly through “vision statements”.

Of course, I disagree with some of them, but I think that it is good to think about their rationale in stating these myths and how evidence have shown otherwise. The companies focussed in their research study includes 3M, Hwelett-Packard, IBM, Merck, Wal-Mart and etc. In the book, they did extensive research in explaining how these companies established themselves to be visionary companies and how they overcome times of difficulty as well. I would say that it is a must-have for those who are thinking of building companies that last, whether it is a start-up, small-medium enterprise or big multi-national corporation.

From Alchemy to IPO: The Business of Biotechnology by Cynthia Robbins-Roth

This book talks about the history of the biotechnology business which begins from the story of Genentech in 1976. It did a very good coverage of the rise of other biotechnology companies like Amgen and Genzyme and discuss the emerging technologies within the biotech market in context, for example, the genome sequencing project, gene-therapy and agricultural biology. The book is written from a venture capitalist’s point of view, and hence the issue of biotech financing is brought into the later part of the book, in explaining how to take a biotechnology to IPO and the financing models for biotechnology companies in general.

I would recommend this book to those who are interested in the biotechnology industry. Particularly, as I might be teaching a course soon on biotechnology commercialization, it is a book which I highly recommend for my students if they want to be part of the biotech sector.

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Successful Companies, Biotechnology, Start-Ups, Business, Entrepreneurship, Private Equity, Technopreneurs