Now that you've read The 48 Laws of Power and Think and Grow Rich, you're ready for the 3rd and final "must read" book for entrepreneurs:

The 33 Strategies of War.

The premise of this book is that "everything that is social, is war".  I believe the same can be said about business.  

Some of my favorite sections:

11: Trade space for time: Nonengagement:  Retreat is a sign of strength. Resisting the temptation to respond buys valuable time. Sometimes you accomplish most by doing nothing.

21: Negotiate while advancing: Diplomatic war:  Before and during negotiations, keep advancing, creating relentless pressure and compelling the other side to settle on your terms. The more you take, the more you can give back in meaningless concessions. Create a reputation for being tough and uncompromising so that people are giving ground even before they meet you.

5: Avoid the snares of groupthink: Command-and-control:  Create a chain of command where people do not feel constrained by your influence yet follow your lead. Create a sense of participation, but do not fall into groupthink.

Each strategy is clearly explained using several examples from real leaders in real wars.  But this is not a military book...the analogies to life and business are extremely clear.

You will be a better entrepreneur after reading this book....and it will remain at your desk for reference for the rest of your career.

Win.

Get the book now....or download it to your Kindle:

Audio CD: The 33 Strategies of War

Paperback: The 33 Strategies of War  

 

 

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There are very few books that I consider a "must read" for entrepreneurs.   VERY few.  In fact, there are only THREE.

But Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill is one of them.  

This is the bestselling success book of ALL TIME for a reason.  It works.

In Think and Grow Rich, Hill draws on stories of Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and other millionaire entrepreneurs of his generation to illustrate his principles of success.

Basically, the entire book is a series of compelling stories that lead you to understand what made the greatest entrepreneurs great.  Hint:  It's not education, it's not strategy...it's all in the power of the mind. 

I read it once a year on my Kindle, because every time I read it, I come away more motivated, passionate and focused than I've ever been.

Like most of you have experienced with The 48 Laws of Power and The 33 Strategies of War.

You WILL be a better entrepreneur and person after reading this book.

Win.




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 Headlines of interest for startups and entrepreneurs interested in winning:

Why working from home sucks

Always a victim:  Sabotage of Success

Biz Plan for Pirates

Want a VISA?  Forget marriage, just get a $250k investor!

The Elite Eight for Startups

Startups Rules of Speed

Build Relationships with Journalists






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I suggested that you read The 48 Laws of Power.  The feedback has been incredible.  Over the top, actually.  The book is that good.  

So every once in a while, I'll examine one of the laws.  Today's is pretty ruthless, and thus true:  

 Law 42

Strike the Shepherd and the Sheep will Scatter

Trouble can often be traced to a single strong individual – the stirrer, the arrogant underling, the poisoned of goodwill.  If you allow such people room to operate, others will succumb to their influence.  Do not wait for the troubles they cause to multiply, do not try to negotiate with them – they are irredeemable. Neutralize their influence by isolating or banishing them.  Strike at the source of the trouble and the sheep will scatter.

The old adage that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link is true....for a chain.  Fortunately, it's not really true in business.  Unlike a chain pulling a truck, you can find ways to give the incompetent less important tasks to do, and still derive value from their efforts.

It's not the incompetent within your startup that you need to concern yourself with (they are easy to manage or get rid of)....it's the selfish and arrogant.

You know the bastard I'm talking about.  He questions your plans, yet never offers concrete alternatives.  He plays the politician of the office, always trying to win the favor of others for reasons unrelated to job performance.   Her stories don't add up, and others in the office are often quoting her in vague objections to your strategy and requests.

Caution:  There are lots of people in startups who are legitimately curious, full of great ideas and genuinely challenge you for the betterment of the team.  You must embrace this and encourage it.  You must be confident and competent in your leadership to know the difference between team-play and subversion.

But when someone on your team is actually subverting the goals of the team for personal gain, that's a different story.  That is when you must be ruthless, quick and right.

You have two options:

1.  Squash them publicly.  Show that you retain the wheel, that their efforts to undermine you will fail.  Do this with humor and grace, while lauding their positive contributions to the team.  If done properly, the rebellion will seem unnecessary and foolish to him and his followers.  Keep him working with only your most loyal employees and partners for a while....

2.  Fire him.  Get the cancer out of the system quickly and quietly.  Don't embarrass or attack him.  Pay him severance and compliment him.  Build him up to do something on his own....because he "is obviously interested in being the captain of his own ship."  

In either case, it's time to sit down and figure out where YOU failed as a leader.   Are you ignoring the ideas of your team, causing them to be frustrated and bond together?   Did you simply hire the wrong person?  Are you not giving intellectual ownership to the all-stars on your team?  

Remember, when you have to take action against a member of your team, it's because you have failed in some way.  Isolate it.  Neutralize it.  Learn from it.  Correct it.

Win.

 

 

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A couple weeks ago on twitter I asked about evernote.  

The response was amazing, so I opened an account and gave it a shot...so that I, as the only authority capable of determining Swantasticness, could see if it was worthy of my blessing, and thus worthy of your time.

Days later, I was hooked.

What gmail does for email, Evernote does for everything else.

Jot down a note on your phone.

Clip a section of a website.

Take a picture of a whiteboard, or a wine bottle, or a book cover, etc.

Evernote stores them all seamlessly....

But even better, you can organize your notes with tags, or in separate "notebooks" if you're using it for different topics, etc.

And even better than that, you can search your notes by tag, text, title, etc.  It even recognizes decent handwriting on a picture you took of a whiteboard or notecard, etc.  Amazing.

Truly Swantastic! for the entrepreneur who wears a different hat every hour and is always learning or thinking of something new to help his business.

Win

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Collaboration, partnerships:

Sometimes it's the most unlikely of combinations that will get the crowd excited the most. 

If you're looking for ways to differentiate  (you should be)......instead of thinking "who should we be working with", try:

Who could you be working with?




Get outside of your niche.

Win.
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An afternoon off is a good way to celebrate a win.

But it can also contribute to one.  Get your mind out of a rut, disappear for a bit, and refresh.

Saying "I'm not going to do this right now....this project doesn't own me, I own it" is liberating and leads to higher quality work.

In fact, I think I'm going to do that right now.

Fore!
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It stinks walking into a negotiation without the background knowledge to have a proper conversation or any understanding of what the other side of the table is after. 

One of the best ways to learn about venture capital (and private investors in general) is to read the stuff that they publish.

Here is a list of guys that I read often, that you probably should too:

Fred Wilson

Brad Feld

Chris Dixon

First Round

Bryce



This page is a work in progress and will be updated often.  I know there are tons of really high quality sources on this that I read often via link flow...

Please let us know in the comments any other VC blogs that are Swantastic! must reads...



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There are lots of ways to improve your mind and make yourself a better entrepreneur.  Books like the 48 laws of power are incredible at keeping your mind sharp and teaching you new techniques for success.

But there is another way to really improve your mind, sharpen your focus and become better at what you do.

Exercise.  

It's a bit of an odd concept, but I can attest to it and many others I know can as well:  Improving your body improves your mind.  Here's some reasons why:

It increases the number of brain cells you have.  

Exercise forces your body to protect the brain:

 "Because it burns calories so quickly, aerobic exercise is a threat to the body's energy reserves. Heeding this danger, the body acts to protect one of its most precious, and energy-demanding, organs: the brain.

 Unlike cells in less critical organs, neurons are extremely vulnerable to disruptions in energy supply. "If deprived of energy for more than one minute," said Gomez-Pinilla, "the neuron dies." For that reason, he continued, "all the physiology of the body is designed to protect the brain."

By acting as a mild stressor, exercise is an alternative way to spur many of the protective benefits associated with calorie restriction and the release of brain-building growth factors, said Carl Cotman, director of the Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia at the University of California in Irvine."
 

There are a whole host of other reasons that exercise makes you sharper and better able to concentrate.  Increased blood flow, etc.

And that's just the physiological side of exercise....there are still a lot of ways that exercise helps you develop key entrepreneurial traits like tenacity, self-motivation, turning resistance into strength, etc that we'll get into later.

In case you needed another reason to get away from the computer screen and get your body movin'.....do it for your startup.  It'll increase your sales. 

It's a Swantastic! way to improve your business.

Win.

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 Keeping track of your brand online is a good for:

• Seeing how people honestly perceive your company.  What do they like, what don't they like?  If you see 3 tweets in one day about how horrible your customer service is, you know there is a hole there.
• Keeping the pulse of brand-building and other marketing efforts.  Are people talking about your company?  If so, are you making it easy for them to turn their friends into customers?  What's really going on out there?
• Stopping problems before they get really really big.  This is pretty rare, but if you figure out that someone with a powerful bullhorn is aimed at hurting your company, it's easier to turn the situation into a positive if you see it happening early and do what it takes to remedy the situation.
• Making sales.  This one is tough because you don't want to annoy people....but if someone says "OMG I am so frustrated I would pay someone $1000 to get rid of these weeds!" wouldn't you think Joes Ultimate Weed Killer Company should at least know about it?

There are tons of options for monitoring social media and the web, and a lot of ways to hack together a decent process on your own using Chartbeat, Twitter Search and Google Alerts, but those don't really give you the high-level analytical view that you'll need to see what worked and how things are changing.

But if you are really serious about understanding and influencing social media in your industry, I really like Filtrbox.  

The Filtrbx G2 system is extremely powerful.  What's really cool is that Filtrbox is alerting you to activity that takes place across the web:  Blogs, social media, videos, comments on blogs, forums, news, etc.  In other words, if someone is talking about your company on the web, filtrbox is going to let you know about it.

The monitoring is close to real-time, but more importantly the analytics just plain kick-ass and the alerts aren't bad either.  

There is a free trial of filtrbox and the pricing is pretty reasonable as it scales with the size of your operation.

Check it out, it's a Swantastic! way to keep your ear to the ground.

Win.





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