“Blueprint to a Billion” (2006)

An interestingly written book, by a guy (David G. Thomson) who manages to synthesize in only 7 core values all the “do’s” and “don’t’s” of companies that in a small number of years have gone from an idea worth a billion to a business worth a billion. Microsoft, Google, eBay, Starbucks are just a few examples of such successful companies.

David takes a group 387 elite companies (the methodology of the analysis is well exposed) and he studies what the companies who managed to get there had in common in order to reach sales worth a billion versus what the companies that could not manage that did. With some coherent explanations and interesting stories, he arrives at the following 7 essential values:

• Uniqueness of the real benefit which is of great value for the client;
• Exploiting a booming market segment;
• Using “special” clients both for defining the products and for promoting them;
• Using alliances with well-known brands;
• Approaching a business model with exponential growth;
• Dual top management team: Internally / externally oriented leadership;
• Board of Directors consisting of experts in the field.

Reading the explanations and the examples we undoubtedly find platitudes (real benefit, unique offer…) that are really well-known (but that we don’t always apply – sic!), but also new and interesting ideas (the duality of the management team – with the already classic example of Steve Ballmer / Bill Gates). I think it is interesting to ponder a bit (I remember now the joke about the boss who isn’t sleeping, he is pondering) on the value added by the Board of Directors – highly used mechanism in the US which is completely ignored in Romania.
Mind you, funding isn’t part of the “essentials”… It is certainly useful, but it doesn’t make the difference.

All in all, we have 300 pages that are worth reading the moment you decide to set up a big company and even worth perusing from time to time after that… to see if your train is about to crash – and to put it back on the rails if it is. It’s an exercise in analyzing a business from high up (really high up 🙂 ).

(English version by Teodora Popescu)