Masters of Scale by Hoffman, Reid;

Long description:

1

Getting to No

When she first pitched her idea for a new kind of career development website to investors, Kathryn Minshew was turned down 148 times . . . not that she was counting.

There were literally days where I had a No over breakfast, a No over a 10:30 a.m. coffee, a No over lunch, Kathryn says. And the Nos kept coming: Disinterest at 2 p.m. Someone who left the meeting early at 4. And then I would go to drinks and feel like I was being laughed out of the room.

And when we finally raised our seed round, I went back and counted. It was both painful and gratifying at the same time looking at all those names, and thinking, I remember that no. I remember that no. I remember that no. And they sting; every one stings.

Kathryn is cofounder and CEO of The Muse, and her idea sprang as so many great entrepreneurial ideas do from her own experience. Kathryn had spent her youth dreaming of a career in international relations. Secret Agent Minshew! But after a stint with the U.S. embassy in Cyprus she realized her foreign service fantasy didn t match the reality of the work. So she took a job as a consultant with McKinsey & Company and spent three years in their New York office. When it was time to move on again with her career, she found the experience disappointing and dehumanizing.

It wasn t uncommon to type in a keyword on a job-listing site like Monster.com and get 5,724 results and they all looked functionally identical to each other. I just felt, for someone starting out in their career, that there has to be a better experience, Kathryn says.

So she started brainstorming with Alex Cavoulacos, a former colleague from McKinsey and her future cofounder. They asked themselves: What if you built a career site that put the individual at the center of that experience? And what if you allowed them to see inside offices before they applied to a company? What if you connected them with experts who could help them understand How do you negotiate a salary? How do you manage someone for the first time? all of those career questions that if you re lucky a mentor or a boss teaches you.

The more they shared their own experiences and envisioned what they might create, the clearer the opportunity became. After a couple of long nights at the whiteboard batting this idea around, we became convinced that there was an opportunity to create a trusted, beloved, personalized career destination really focusing on the advice that early-stage professionals need, Kathryn says.

Kathryn and Alex had a clear vision for the role The Muse could play in users lives. But not everyone could see what they were seeing.

When I started pitching to investors, I ran into a couple of big problems, Kathryn says. The first is that most investors don t match the user archetype that our product was built for. When you think about the classic venture capitalist, they often have been traditionally successful in their career, went to a top school, worked in banking or private equity. They usually get jobs through a very comfortable, well-developed network. And that s great. But that s not necessarily the case for everyone. So we were pitching this site and this concept to a demographic that looked at me with confusion.

The second problem she encountered: complacency with the status quo. We ran into a lot of people who were unable to see past the current paradigm and the way things had always been done, Kathryn says. One venture capitalist who probably hasn t looked for a job in twenty years pulled up Monster.com in the office after I finished my initial pitch. He said, I don t understa

[Hoffman] seizes on traits that might otherwise be missed . . . [and] earnestly contends that, through careful attention to leadership and culture, the propulsive drive to grow can be disentangled from the toxic behavior so often associated with explosive expansion. It feels like the triumph of hope over experience. The Wall Street Journal

Whether you re at a startup or working to drive change within a large organization, the business principles in this book will help you deploy your strategy with creativity, integrity, and realism. Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft Corporation

Think of this book as a mentorship in ten chapters, with stories and advice from people you might already admire, as well as people whose journeys are just starting. You'll come away with at least a couple of new mantras and a new understanding of the how and why of building your business. Franklin Leonard, founder of The Black List  
 
Reid Hoffman has a talent for getting right to the heart of a business case and turning it into an unforgettable lesson. If you re scaling a company or if you just love a well-told story this is a book to savor. Bob Iger, executive chairman, The Walt Disney Company

[Reid Hoffman] shows how any company of any stripe can bake generosity and social good into its DNA, and how making a positive contribution to the world can be the driving force that helps your company scale. Daniel Lubetzky, executive chairman and founder of KIND and New York Times bestselling author of Do the KIND Thing
 
A book to take with you into battle as you build a company or a career. It s full of enjoyable stories, but the killer feature is the sharp insights that Hoffman draws out specific, memorable, and actionable mindsets. Reed Hastings, co-founder and co-CEO, Netflix

To lead with vision and heart, start by listening and learning from others. Using stories to teach lessons, this book is full of solid (and sometimes surprising!) advice that will help accelerate your journey. Angela Ahrendts, former CEO, Burberry, and former head, Apple Retail

What if, instead of learning from one entrepreneur at a time, you could distill the lessons of many of the greatest founders of our time? This book combines memorable stories with actionable insights from world-class leaders to help you turn your biggest, boldest ideas into reality. Adam Grant,