THE 99U
BOOK SERIES
Manage Your Day-to-Day:
Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind
Maximize Your Potential:
Grow Your Expertise, Take Bold Risks, and Build an Incredible Career
Make Your Mark:
The Creatives Guide to Building a Business with Impac t
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No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.
Published by Amazon Publishing, Seattle
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ISBN-10: 1477801235
ISBN-13: 9781477801239
For the Makers
TABLE OF CONTENTS
WHAT IS 99U?
For too long, the creative world has focused on idea generation at the expense of idea execution. As the legendary inventor Thomas Edison famously said, Genius is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent perspiration. To make great ideas a reality, we must act, experiment, fail, adapt, and learn on a daily basis.
99U is Behances effort to provide this missing curriculum for making ideas happen. Through our Webby Awardwinning website, popular events, and bestselling books, we share pragmatic, action-oriented insights from leading researchers and visionary creatives.
At 99U, we dont want to give you more ideaswe want to empower you to make good on the ones youve got.
PREFACE
What do Dropbox, Nest, Uber, and Airbnb all have in common? Each began as a two- or three-man start-up operation that has been transformed, in seven years or less, from a small idea into a serious businesswith a multibillion-dollar valuation to boot. When you step back and look at lightning-fast growth trajectories like these, its clear that the rules of business have changed. Many of the classic tenets that have guided great companies for decades are now outmoded or irrelevant at best.
To craft companies that can thrive in this fast-paced, e-commerce-driven, socially connected world, we need a new playbookone that reflects the values and the strategies of this new breed of creative business. To create just that with Make Your Mark , we went straight to the source, tapping twenty-one leading experts and entrepreneurs for their insights on whats new and different about building a business right now.
To share just a sampling: Warby Parker co-founder Neil Blumenthal explains why customers BS detectors are more sensitive than ever (and what that means for building a brand), Google Xs Sebastian Thrun discusses the importance of relentless iteration and fast failure, Buffer founder Joel Gascoigne articulates the unexpected benefits of adopting a policy of radical transparency, and Facebooks Julie Zhuo makes the case for an approach to product design thats so simple and streamlined its almost invisible.
As the book came together, I noticed certain themes bubbling up again and again that epitomized the core values of this new guard of creative entrepreneurs. And, refreshingly, they arent about money or profitdespite the billion-dollar examples mentioned abovebut rather about making an impact. I observed a renewed commitment to craftsmanship and the desire to create truly beautiful product experiences, a powerful focus on the importance of both giving and serving (your customers and your team), and a fierce dedication to building businesses that will change the world for the better.
Whether youre about to launch a new company or are considering how to retool an existing business, my hope is that this collection will offer you fresh thinking, practical advice, and the moxie to get out there and make something that matters.
JOCELYN K. GLEI, editor-in-chief, 99U
FOREWORD:
MAKING AN IMPACT IN WHAT MATTERS MOST TO YOU
Scott Belsky, Founder of Behance and Author of Making Ideas Happen
Creativity has many definitions.
For me, creativity is solving problems in new ways and conceiving new ways of looking at the world.
Creativity can be expressed in many forms, like art, science, and thought.
But creativity is all too often undiscoverable and incomprehensible.
Art, without distribution and discovery, moves nobody. Did it ever exist? Science, without clear explanation and advocacy, wont be understood by the masses. Will it make an impact?
Thought, if not written down and shared with others, changes nothing. Does it matter?
Your ideas, if not captured and executed, affect nobody. Are they relevant?
Creation must be made accessible for consumption. This is your real job.
Execution, distribution, packaging, marketing, messaging, strategy, leadership... this is business.
Without great management and stewardship, creativitylike fireworkswill flash and then dim to dust.
The potential of creativityand your ability to sustain yourself and serve others through creativityis more about business than it is about ideas.
This book is about applying the forces of business to creativity. Its not about making money; its about making an impact.
Its about channeling, packaging, and delivering your talent for others to consume it.
Its also about scaling your talent for more people to benefit from it. With creativity comes a drive to succeed.
But unlike traditional measures of successlike money, titles, or statusthe creative mind is driven by a desire to see creativity come to life. Success is making an impact in what matters most to you.
To make an impact with creativity, you must love what you do.
Otherwise, dont bother. It requires too many hours of hardship, self-doubt, and pain to conceive of something new and birth it into the world. It takes struggle that you genuinely believe is worth the pain. You must do it as a labor of love.
To keep at it long enough to become exceptional, your labor must be sustainable. You must learn to earn a living with your art (or science or thought) so that you can nourish yourself as you nourish your work.
In this third book in 99Us missing curriculum for creative leaders, we dive into creativity as a business. From defining your purpose and the problem youre solving to building products that serve people, how do you set yourself up to make an impact in what matters most to you?
The book ahead is our attempt to outfit you for creativity as a business. If you dont manage your ideas like an entrepreneur, they will die with you. Jump in and take the reins.
The first thing to understand about building an incredible business is that its not about you. Well, its not ONLY about you. Rather, its about finding the perfect alignment between your specific talents and expertise and what the world needs.
Thats why the best businesses arent profit-driven or even product-driven; theyre purpose-driven. They strive to solve real problems, meet pressing needs, and change the world in ways big and small. They make a commitment to constantly learning and iterating and evolving to become better at executing their missions. They focus on creating value, and let everything else follow.
