Svane / Adler Startupland

How Three Guys Risked Everything to Turn an Idea into a Global Business
1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-1-118-98086-6
Verlag: John Wiley & Sons
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 224 Seiten, E-Book

The real story of what it takes to risk it all and go forbroke.
Conventional wisdom says most startups need to be in SiliconValley, started by young engineers around a sexy new idea, andbacked by VC funding. But as Mikkel Svane reveals inStartupland, the story of founding Zendesk was anything butconventional.
Founded in a Copenhagen loft by three thirty-something friendslooking to break free from corporate doldrums, Zendesk Inc. is nowone of the hottest enterprise software companies, still rapidlygrowing with customers in 150 countries. But its success wasanything but predestined. With revealing stories both funny andfrank, Mikkel shares how he and his friends bravely left securejobs to start something on their own, how he almost went brokeseveral times, how they picked up themselves and their families totravel across the world to California and the unknown, and how thethree friends were miraculously still together for Zendesk's IPOand (still growing) success.
Much like Zendesk's mission itself--to remove friction,barriers, and mystery in order to make customer service easier andmore approachable--Startupland removes some of themyths about startups and startup founders. Mikkel's advice,hard-won through experience, often bucks conventional wisdom andentrepreneurial tropes. He shares why failure (whether fast orslow) is awful, why a seemingly boring product or idea can be themost exciting, why giving back to the community is as important asthe bottom line. From how to hire right (look for people who arenot offended by swearing) to which personas generate the highestresponse rates, Mikkel answers the most pressing questions from theperspective of someone still in the trenches and willing to sharethe hard truth, warts and all.
While there are books by consultants who tell you how to buildbusinesses, or by entrepreneurs now running billion-dollarbusinesses, there are few books from people still in the trencheswho acutely remember the difficult daily decisions, the thrill (andfears) of the early days, the problems that scale with growing abusiness, and the reason why they all went on the adventure in thefirst place. Startupland is indispensable reading for allentrepreneurs who want to make their ideas the next big thing. Thebook will inspire and empower you to follow your own dream andcreate your own story.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Svane, Mikkel

Adler, Carlye

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Foreword by Alexia Tsotsis ix
Introduction: The Pursuit of Happiness 1
1 The Honeymoon 7
Believing that what you're doing is great and knowingnothing of what's to come
2 The Salad Days 31
Keeping it together when things should be falling apart
3 Going for Broke 57
How to turn down money and keep your company (and your soul)
4 The Bubble Redux 69
Battling circumstances beyond your control
5 The Game Is Not Over 81
Getting investors and getting along with your partners
6 Coming to America 97
Chasing the dream--and dealing with the reality
7 Go West 115
Leveraging location and upending our lives
8 Growing Up 133
Going from building a product to building a company--andmessing up along the way
9 Innocence Lost 151
From idealist to realist, and the uncomfortable journey inbetween
10 Going to the Show 167
Becoming a public company and remembering where we came from
Epilogue 179
A Few More Thoughts 185
It's all about relationships
Notes 189
Acknowledgments 191
About the Authors 193
Index 197

Über Autor(innen)

MIKKEL SVANE is founder, chairman, and CEO of Zendesk, Inc. (ZEN), a global software company with a beautifully simple web-based customer service desk, loved by tens of thousands of organizations in 150 countries including Uber, Adobe, Red Bull, and Pinterest. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and children. For more information, please visit www.zendesk.com, or follow Mikkel on Twitter via @mikkelsvane.
CARLYE ADLER is an award-winning journalist and coauthor of several bestselling books. Her books have been translated into a dozen languages. She lives in New York. For more information, please visit www.carlyeadler.com.