It’s natural to be afraid of doubt — especially when you’re leading a team. You want to be the calm, cool, and collected leader … but inside you’re freaking out.
Turns out, some of the best leaders and innovators are those who share their doubts with their team. That’s what Kevin Eyres, an executive coach for hyper-growth companies and former executive at LinkedIn, recommends to the leaders he works with.
Ever wonder why Google is so successful?
Is it their quirky culture? Fancy office space? Rigorous hiring process?
According to Todd Rowe, Managing Director at Google, the tech giant’s success comes down to three things: manically focusing on Google’s end-user, placing big bets on new projects, and giving employees the freedom to achieve audacious goals.
The year was 2006. Sophia Amoruso was sitting in her apartment in a bathrobe, putting together a vintage clothes store on eBay. She was the “one man band” behind Nasty Gal: finding the vintage clothes, styling the outfits, modeling them for product pictures, shipping her products to eager customers, and collecting feedback along the way.
Years later, Nasty Gal was generating $100 million in revenue, employing hundreds of employees in a swanky LA office, and selling clothes in both online and brick-and-mortar locations.
When Jonah Peretti was in college, he didn’t think he’d be founding and growing two of the biggest internet media empires in the world. He was an environmental studies major who took computer classes on the side — but he was always curious about why ideas spread.
Ten years after he graduated college, this same curiosity spurred him to build The Huffington Post and BuzzFeed, which are now regarded as some of the most popular sites on the web.
Marc Maron is a comedian who has appeared on everything from Late Night with Conan O’Brien to VH1, HBO, and Comedy Central, but it’s his work outside the standup comedy circuit that has been getting him a lot of attention these past few years.
Back in 2009, Marc decided to start hosting a twice-weekly podcast called WTF With Marc Maron featuring candid conversations with comedians and celebrities.
Through nearly 40 episodes of The Growth Show, we’ve seen a consistent theme when it comes to growth: It’s all about finding the right people.
But according to Ghostery CEO Scott Meyer, your definition of “right” should change as your company grows. The employees who help you get to your first million in revenue are not the ones who will help get you to $10 million in revenue — and that’s okay. Change is a key part of growth.
“Bad news for craft beer lovers: The Alchemist is not going to reopen after all. The pub and brewery in Waterbury, Vt., were destroyed by Hurricane Irene in August. The owners, John and Jen Kimmich, had been planning to rebuild and reopen, but they have learned that insurance will not cover the losses in the basement, where the brewery was located.”
That’s the lede from a 2011 story in The Boston Globe.
So how is The Alchemist featured on our most recent podcast about growth? Well, turns out that this wasn’t the end of The Alchemist after all.
Great entrepreneurs tend to gravitate toward the hard challenges.
That’s exactly Jeff Raider did when he started Harry’s, a company that sells razors, blades, and shaving gel right from their website.
Not only is shaving an industry that’s over 100 years old and rarely sees big innovation, but Jeff was also up against some big incumbents with deep pockets and intellectual property rights that could easily stifle innovation.
One of the fasting-growing wine brands in the U.S. doesn’t own any vineyards. They don’t plant any grapes. They don’t even own any wineries. Instead, they buy and re-sell premium wines.
It all began during the last recession. 90+ Cellars President Kevin Mehra saw some big inefficiencies in the wine market, so he came up with a plan to flip the industry on its head.
“Everyone should learn how to code.”
This has been the narrative in the technology industry over the last few years, and for good reason. Code is behind nearly everything we touch today. Even those who don’t have a desire to become a developer are learning to code in order to gain a fundamental understanding of how technology operates.
It’s hard enough running one business, but Elon Musk manages to run three: Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity. And a result, he’s amassed a net worth of over $5 billion and become one of today’s most ambitious and audacious entrepreneurs.
Many people compare Elon Musk to Steve Jobs given his strong will, stubbornness, arrogance, and unmatched marketing skills, but in his new biography of Musk, veteran tech journalist Ashlee Vance says the better comparison just might be Thomas Edison.
Love learning about business and how some of today’s most successful entrepreneurs and companies are operating?
Business podcasts serve as a great way to stay informed (and inspired).
All you need is your smartphone and a pair of headphones to tune in to everything from one-on-one interviews with today’s top leaders to recaps of the day’s most pressing business news.
Over a million subscribers. Five hundred thousand followers on social media. Oprah’s favorite newsletter.
These things didn’t seem like an achievable reality when Danielle Weisberg and Carly Zakin quit their jobs at NBC News to start theSkimm. With only two months of savings and zero experience starting a business, they weren’t sure what was in store for their startup.
The media landscape has changed dramatically over the last few years. While many traditional publications and media startups are being acquired, laying off employees, or even going out of business, some publications are weathering the storm just fine.
Just look at Harvard Business Review and VentureBeat to see what I mean. Harvard Business Review reaches between four and five million unique visitors each month, and VentureBeat, an independent technology news site, reaches over seven million.
