Derek Lidow - Startup Leadership

Derek Lidow is right: entrepreneurs, not mere ideas, lead companies to their full potential. Lidow puts this powerful idea to work, alongside the full breadth and depth of his own experiences running growth companies, in Startup Leadership. I recommend this book for every founderregardless of your stagebecause Lidow's invaluable insights, personal leadership strategies, and framework will help you improve the trajectory of your success.

Rich Karlgaard, publisher, Forbes magazine; board director; investor; entrepreneur; and author, The Soft Edge

Trust me because I've seen and done virtually everything that's possible in business today. Whether you're an investor, board member, CEO, accelerator, small business owner, or aspiring entrepreneur, Startup Leadership is mandatory reading. Thanks to the smart and detailed advice of serial success story Derek Lidow, the book will help de-risk virtually any enterprise. It will also expand your levels of innovation, profits, culture, and success. I recommend you get a copyand give a copy to someone who needs it.

Bruce Hack, advisor, angel investor, board director, and former CEO, Vivendi Games

The entrepreneur's journey is often misunderstood as an idea coming to life. In fact, it is entrepreneurs themselves who must learn to create and lead an organization. Startup Leadership provides aspiring and experienced entrepreneurs powerful tools to grow as leaders.

Brian O'Kelley, founder and CEO, AppNexus

This is not another book on how to build a successful startup. Lidow demystifies relationship building, negotiation, and vision creation with clarity and balance. He shows what it takes to become a more confident leader who builds startups with less risk and better outcomes. Your transformation into a better-equipped entrepreneurial leader begins now.

Natasha Gajewski, founder and CEO, Symple Health Inc.

If any book contains the secrets of entrepreneurial success, this is it! I recommend Startup Leadership to both budding and proven entrepreneurs.

Greg Olsen, founder, Epitaxx and Sensors Unlimited

Startup Leadership is the handbook for leadership all entrepreneurs should read while scaling their business.

Chris Kuenne, founder-entrepreneur, Rosetta

A must-read for aspiring and experienced entrepreneurs!

Jeremey Donovan, author, How to Deliver a TED Talk

This book fills an important gap among books about entrepreneurship, and Derek Lidow shows what it really takes to make a successful startup. Startup Leadership focuses on the essential, yet elusive, leadership elements required to navigate a venture from idea to self-sustainability. Future entrepreneurs will be thankful to have this companion along for the entire journey.

John Danner, professor, Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley

Finally, an easy-to-read and digestible blueprint for entrepreneurs that will empower them to build and lead sustainable enterprises. Lidow encapsulates years of trial and error and teaches what's required for successful entrepreneurship with a clear methodology.

Jeanne Gray, founder and CEO, AmericanEntrepreneurship.com

Finally, from the true-life experiences of a highly successful entrepreneur, comes a how-to book that is more than an academic compendium. Derek Lidow captures the essence of the leadership qualities needed for success, not just in the formation and early stages of a venture, but along the path to a significant stand-alone business. This hands-on book is an instant classic.

Ricardo B. Levy, professor, Stanford University, and author, Letters to a Young Entrepreneur

Copyright 2014 by Derek B. Lidow. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lidow, Derek, 1953

Startup leadership : how savvy entrepreneurs turn their ideas into successful enterprises / Derek Lidow. -- First edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-118-69705-4 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-84567-7 (pdf); ISBN 978-1-118-84565-3 (epub)

1. New business enterprises. 2. Leadership. I. Title.

HD62.5.L525 2014

658.11 -- dc23

To my muse, partner, and true love, Diana

Preface

The objective of this book is to help entrepreneurs succeedall types of entrepreneurs, in all stages of developing their idea into a tangible enterprise. The premise of this book is that entrepreneurs, not ideas, lead their enterprises to success. These pages describe fundamental capabilities that enormously enhance an entrepreneur's chances of success; capabilities that can be enhanced through understanding and practice. This book takes a very different tack from what you find in most books on entrepreneurship, or even what you find in most business books. We do not talk about money, or products, or customers. We do talk about how you and the people you find and motivate need to work together in order to produce more value than you could have done alone.