Sabrina Horn - Make It, Dont Fake It: Leading with Authenticity for Real Business Success

More Praise for Make It, Dont Fake It

Sabrina shares her insights and wisdom gleaned from years of working with tech executives, venture capitalists, and influencers about how doing the right thing results in the right thing to do. In Make It, Dont Fake It, Sabrina shows us that faking it is for losers. Learn how to make it with ethics, passion, confidence, pride, and resilience.

Andy Cunningham, Steve Jobss publicist, bestselling author of Get to Aha!, and CEO, Cunningham Collective

In the 1990s, Sabrina became a valued extension of the PeopleSoft team at a time when core values and beliefs were a novel concept. She kept pace with us as we adapted our core values to navigate PeopleSoft through high growth, bringing a new technology (client/ server) to market, and an initial public offering. We could always count on her honesty, candor, and creativity, and, quite simply, we liked and trusted her. This book shows why. She approaches business and life from an integrity-first perspective and keeps things reala strategy that I believe is fundamental to building successful and enduring products and companies.

Dave Duffield, founder of PeopleSoft, Workday, and Ridgeline

Whether you are a first-time entrepreneur or a seasoned executive, Make It, Dont Fake It is an essential guide for leading with purpose and integrity. There are no growth hacks or shortcuts to success. Sabrina delivers a compelling message at a critical time.

Jay Fulcher, Chairman and CEO, Zenefits

This is a no-nonsense, straightforward guide to succeeding in business as well as life. Sabrinas insightful, commonsense approach to success has led her to it time and time again. Her book is a road map from which all can learn and apply to their lives!

David J. Moore, founder, 24/7 Real Media; former President, WPP Digital; Chairman, IAB; and cofounder and CEO, BritePool

Sabrina Horns Make It, Dont Fake It, loaded with gems of leadership and stories of her personal growth as founder and CEO, is a required and meaningful primer for both budding and experienced leaders. Her emphasis on transparency, values, and culture is interwoven throughout. The impact this emphasis had on her decisions when the chips were down or up is as clear a lesson as any leader or CEO should think about and implement. Refreshing to me were the stories of failure, what they meant, and how she rebounded. Her practical advice is first rate and should be taught in business schools everywhere. Ive known Sabrina for thirty years, and this book is a marvelous testament to her mission and to her life as a successful businesswoman.

Ray Rothrock, venture capitalist, board member, CEO, and philanthropist

Sabrina Horn offers up a pragmatic real-world approach for todays business leaders, which will increase their probability of success in navigating the complex labyrinth that will be required to achieve ones goals.

Peter Sobiloff, Managing Director, Insight Partners

Make It, Dont Fake It

Copyright 2021 by Sabrina Horn

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

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First Edition

Hardcover print edition ISBN 978-1-5230-0060-9

Paperback print edition ISBN 978-1-5230-9149-2

PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-5230-9150-8

IDPF e-book ISBN 978-1-5230-9151-5

Digital audio ISBN 978-1-5230-9152-2

2021-1

Book producer and designer: Seventeenth Street Studios; Cover designer: Susan Malikowski, DesignLeaf Studio; Author photo: David Katzive

For Grace and Christina

I n 1991, Sabrina Horn and I both left well-established high-tech PR firms to hang out our own shingles, and we both had enough success to establish full-fledged consulting firmsThe Horn Group and The Chasm Group, respectively. We also spent most of that decade interoperating and supporting each other during a major expansion of the high-tech sector, driven largely by the enterprises we were both targeting as customers. At the same time, Horn Group was instrumental in helping me launch a series of business books that drove business to our firm, while I was helpful to Sabrina in working through the strategy, positioning, and organizational challenges that come with scaling a fast-growing business. All this to say I am deeply familiar with the person, the events, and the challenges that are at the heart of the book you are about to read.

It is an important book for our times. Faking it is a losers game. It may take a while to catch up with you, but when it does, the reckoning is brutal. Making it is a winners game. It takes grit, it takes commitment, and yes, it takes some luck too, but most of all, win or lose, it is a game you can walk away from with your head held high. Life is not a dress rehearsal. There are no do-overs. It is important for us to be our best selves, to bring our best to our endeavors, to serve the ones we care about as best we can. This is especially true for anyone who wants to found a company.

Peter Drucker famously said, The purpose of a business is to create a customer. How hard can that be? As you will see, it is not only hard, it is hard in different ways, depending on how big your company is, what opportunities are in play, and what headwinds or tailwinds are blowing at the time. Sabrina has been through the gamut, from start-up to exit into a large enterprise, from navigating the evolution of the PR industry to multiple cycles of the tech industry, and from counseling her clients into positions of market leadership, through crises, and finally to their own exits.