
The Sure Thing (How Entrepreneurs Really Succeed) by Malcolm Gladwell - GVRV
http://www.allianceofceos.com/documents/forum/2010-01-Malcolm%20Gladwell%20-%20The%20Sure%20Thing.pdf
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mynameishere
_Ingvar Kamprad, arranged to get his furniture made in Communist Poland for
half of what it would cost him in Sweden... Would we so revere risk-taking if
we realised that the people who are supposedly taking bold risks in the cause
of entrepreneurship are actually doing no such thing?_

Only Gladwell could:

1\. Be dazzled by the _innovation_ of something as ordinary as wage arbitrage,
and yet

2\. Think that opening a factory in a communist country is not an example of
"risk taking".

 _Long after he became wealthy, he would take the bus to his offices in
midtown, and the train out to his summer house on Long Island._

Surely a man of the people would take public transit to his mansion!

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napierzaza
I agree with you on that. The Ikea anecdote was really not well fleshed out at
all. Not only does it not really come inline with the essay, but it's barely
explained and touted throughout the paper as a name-drop.

I also thought the detail that he rode his bike around the Hamptons as a
testament to his thrift was dubious. So someone who buys a house in the
Hamptons is thrifty because he rides a bike? Could it be that he's biking as
some sort of recreation perhaps? Big loss only driving the Lexus in a and out
of the area.

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anamax
> Could it be that he's biking as some sort of recreation perhaps?

He could be trying to impress someone. Maybe there's a bet involved. Maybe
he's trying to affect bicycle sales.

People do things for many reasons. However, observers are really bad at
figuring out said reasons.

See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error> for some
related discussion.

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stcredzero
The first key idea is that the successful entrepreneur is one who executes
transactions where she has a different model of value than the other party.
This is why it pays to wonder about the things "you can't say" and pay
attention to the fringes.

I think that the predator mindset is also key. If one is running scared with
the herd and if one's hope is based on a vague notion or an outside chance,
then one is the opposite of a predator. (The dot-com and Web 2.0 booms were
full of groups with this mindset.) If one has an insight that others do not
and prepared to execute on it, then one is like a predator stalking prey.

How does one study and internalize such a mindset? Is there a safe way to
practice it?

~~~
byrneseyeview
An evolutionary mindset is probably more effective. Instead of saying "What
can I prey on," you can say "What ecological niche is under-exploited or
improperly exploited?"

~~~
stcredzero
I'm not sure it's necessarily more effective. Perhaps it's less sinister
sounding. The problem with ecological niches as a mindset, is that some
ecological niches are quite small.

Then again, perhaps it's a useful metaphor, in that ecological niches are not
static. In the case of social news/networks, sites often started out quite
small, then changed their ecological niche over time. In fact, one can argue
that reddit.com, Digg, MySpace, Facebook all shifted in this way.

The pattern I see here, is that the ecological niche viewpoint is more
strategic, whereas the predator/prey viewpoint is more tactical. When one is
planning a site's entry into a certain market, one can choose a small niche
that can be strategically grown into a larger one. When one is executing on
that entry, look for a place where your understanding of the value proposition
is better than those on the other side of your transaction. (Perhaps this is
what Facebook's founder was thinking when he made that comment on people
giving him their data.)

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chrisa
I would recommend reading the whole thing, but the second paragraph on page 7
is packed with real world advice. This is what it says _failed_ entrepreneurs
do most:

\- Wildly under-capitalized

\- Organize as a sole proprietorship rather than a corporation

\- Don’t write a business plan

\- Start from scratch

\- Sell to consumers rather than businesses

\- Under-emphasize marketing

\- Don't understand financial controls

\- Try to compete on price

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tbrownaw
> \- Wildly under-capitalized > \- Organize as a sole proprietorship rather
> than a corporation > \- Don’t write a business plan > \- Start from scratch

These sound like they probably correlate with noobishness, as in by the time
you know what you're doing you probably have more money available and are more
familiar with complicated corporate structures (and more afraid of lawyers)
and have been taught to like business plans.

> \- Sell to consumers rather than businesses

"Ninety per cent of the fastest-growing companies in the country sell to other
businesses; failed entrepreneurs usually try selling to consumers, and, rather
than serving customers that other businesses have missed, they chase the same
people as their competitors do."

Most failed new businesses try selling to consumers; but how does this compare
the the fraction of all new businesses that try selling to consumers? Most
fastest-growing businesses are in B2B; is the market growing or are they
cannibalizing their competitors?

> \- Don't understand financial controls

Does this mean budgeting and such?

> \- Under-emphasize marketing > \- Try to compete on price

These sound reasonable, in that I wouldn't expect them to be confounded by
being a strong demographic selector like the first items.

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jgilliam
html version is here:
<http://www.gladwell.com/2010/2010_01_18_a_surething.html>

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epochwolf
It's a pdf...

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dhimes
I don't know why you're being downmodded- you were right to point this out.
Thank you.

Someone who can: please fix the title, per the guidelines.

 _If you submit a link to a video or pdf, please warn us by appending [video]
or [pdf] to the title._

~~~
GVRV
Sorry, my bad. I tried editing the link, but was unable to find the editing
page. Thanks to the person who put in the scribd link

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yosho
wasn't this in Outliers?

