How I Built This

The Unexpected Paths to Success from the World's Most Inspiring Entrepreneurs

Guy Raz

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780358645580
• eBook ISBN:
  9780358216780
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Biographies
• Index: Business

WALL STREET JOURNAL #1 Bestselling Business Book

Based on the highly acclaimed NPR podcast, How I Built This with Guy Raz, this book offers priceless insights and inspiration from the world’s top entrepreneurs on how to start, launch, and build a successful venture.

Great ideas often come from a simple spark: A soccer player on the New Zealand national team notices all the unused wool his country produces and figures out a way to turn them into shoes (Allbirds). A former Buddhist monk decides the very best way to spread his mindfulness teachings is by launching an app (Headspace). A sandwich cart vendor finds a way to reuse leftover pita bread and turns it into a multimillion-dollar business (Stacy’s Pita Chips).
 
Award-winning interviewer and podcast creator Guy Raz has interviewed more than 350 highly successful entrepreneurs to uncover amazing true stories like these. In How I Built This, he shares tips for every entrepreneur’s journey: from the early days of formulating your idea, to raising money and recruiting employees, to fending off competitors, to finally paying yourself a real salary. This is a must-read for anyone who has ever dreamed of starting their own business or wondered how trailblazing entrepreneurs made their own dreams a reality.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Introduction
• The Call
• Be Open to Ideas
• Is It Dangerous or Just Scary?
• Leave Your Safety Zone . . . but Do It Safely
• Do Your Research
• Find Your Co-founder
• Fund the Business, Part 1: Bootstrapping
• Get Your Story Straight
• Fund the Business, Part 2: Other People’s Money
• Iterate, Iterate, Iterate
• The Test(s)
• Go In Through the Side Door
• It’s All About Location
• Get Attention, Part 1: Building Buzz
• Get Attention, Part 2: Engineering Word of Mouth
• Survive the Crucible
• Fund the Business, Part 3: Professional Money
• Protect What You’ve Built
• When Catastrophe Strikes
• The Art of the Pivot
• The Destination
• It Can’t Be All About the Money
• Build a Culture, Not a Cult
• Think Small to Get Big
• Manage Partnership Tensions
• Know Thyself
• When to Sell and When to Stay
• Be Kind
• What You Do with Your Luck
• Afterword
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Index
• About the Author
• Connect with HMH
• Footnotes