How They Started in Tough Times

QHB's 10 Points of Focus and Summaries

How They Started in Tough Times 10 Points:

1. Innovation and Resilience: Walt Disney's philosophy of continuous forward momentum despite setbacks underscores the importance of innovation and resilience in business.

2. Ownership and Rights: The loss of Oswald by Walt Disney Productions highlights the critical nature of understanding ownership rights in contracts and negotiations.

3. Purpose over Profit: Disney's emphasis on creating meaningful content over mere profit reflects a commitment to purpose-driven business.

4. Market Timing: Penguin's success during World War II demonstrates the significance of market timing and adaptability in capitalizing on opportunities.

5. Lean Approach in Recession: Justine Roberts' advice from Mumsnet emphasizes adopting a lean approach during economic downturns and being prepared to handle all aspects of the business independently.

6. Passion Driving Innovation: Jimmy Wales' relentless pursuit of creating Wikipedia showcases how passion can drive innovation and fuel long-term commitment to a vision.

7. Networking and Cash Flow: Tim Duffy's advice from MeetingZone highlights the importance of networking and maintaining a healthy cash flow to sustain business operations.

8. Customer-Centric Approach: John Mackey's approach with Whole Foods Market emphasizes the importance of serving customers' needs over ideological pursuits.

9. Diversification and Adaptability: Examples like Foxtons and Jane Asher Cakes underscore the importance of diversification and adaptability in responding to market changes and challenges.

10. Risk-taking and Persistence: Success stories like Masala Masala and Red or Dead illustrate the necessity of risk-taking, persistence, and a clear vision in entrepreneurial endeavors.

QHB's Selected Book Quotes and Summaries

*** DL = David Lester (The Author)

== The Walt Disney Company ==

# "Around here, we don't look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening new doors and doing new things, because we're curious." - Walt Disney

# "But the company had not only lost its staff - it lost Oswald too. The terms of the original contract clearly stated that Walt Disney Productions did not own the rights to the cartoo"n - Mintz did.

# "I don't make pictures just to make money. I make money to make more pictures." - Walt Disney

== Penguin ==

# "The outbreak of the second world war in 1939 actually proved to be advantageous for penguin. Penguin's book 'What Hitler Wants' achieved record breaking sales, and books were ordered in huge quantities to be delivered to the armed forces." - DL

== Impressions ==

# "At this stage it was more about the satisfaction when of doing it, with a chance to make a bit of extra money if things went well." - David Lester

== Three Sixty Entertainment ==

# "Raising funds was a task of 'Sheer Bloody-minded determination'" - Collin Wilkinson

== Mumsnet ==

# "Having done our research carefully, there wasn't really anything like our idea in the market at the time." - Justine Roberts

# "Boo failed in a spectacular fashion and put everyone off the idea of dotcoms. This meant our chances of funding disaster too, almost overnight." - Justine Roberts

# "In a recession, it is best to adopt a lean approach. You have to be prepared to do everything yourself." - Justine Roberts

== Wikipedia ===

# "The idea seemed completely obvious to me and i went into a mad panic as i feared someone else would do it." - Jimmy Wales

# Jimmy was too passionate about the concept of creating a free encyclopedia to close Nupedia. "That's when the idea really seized hold of me and i wanted to make it my life's work." - Jimmy Wales

== Linkedin ==

# "Reid always planned to work for himself one day. His aim was to build experience, skills and confidence, and prove to the venture capitalists he was taking them at their word." - DL

# "There are three words people use for retail: location, location, location. For the internet, it's distribution, distribution, distribution" - Reid Hoffman

== IBM ==

# "But an invention alone does not a business make, no matter how great it is." - DL

# "He (Thomas Watson) also introduced what became known as The Man Proposition. He took out the words such as 'general manager' and 'sales manager' and then crossed out all the words apart from 'man', suggesting that all were equal in the company." - DL

# "We are just men. Men standing together, shoulder to shoulder, all working for one common good." - Thomas Watson

== Hewlett-Packard ==

# " A phone call to Harold Buttner soon sorted out the payment, but a vital lesson had been learnt: even with a full order book, a business's cash flow is paramount." - DL

# "Like many successful business partnerships, William and David brought increasingly different skills to the business. William (Hewlett) worked alongside the engineers, while David (Packard) was the face of the company, often acting as spokesman." - DL

== Microsoft ==

# "and negotiated to license their operating system to IBM on a royalty basis (having learnt from its experience with MITS, Microsoft was insistent that is retained the rights to the program) so that every-time a copy was sold, IBM would pay a fee to Microsoft." - DL

== MeetingZone ==

# “Do as much networking as possible so that you get to know alot of people.” - Tim Duffy

# “ MeetinfZone would have run out of cash very quickly had the sales not appeared as predicted.” - Tim Duffy

== Whole Foods Market ==

# “ We were a whole food store, not a ‘holy food’ store. We’re in business not to fulfill some type of ideology, but to service our customers.” - John Mackey.

== Specsavers ==

# "Mary Built up a high standing in the community by delivering great service and by ‘being nice to people." - DL

== Moonpig ==

# "Nick wanted to take an existing product, and somehow transform and improve it, using the internet and existing technology." - DL

== Jane Asher Cakes ==

# "When Jane began discussing the idea with friends, she met with negativity - a lot of people tried to warn her off setting up a business during such tough economic conditions." - DL

# "She advises budding entrepreneurs to be ready to diversify- its something she did after bitter experience." - DL

==Charlton House Catering ==

# “It may have seemed like lunacy at the time, but we had a clear vision of how we could make it a success.” - Robyn Jones

== Masala Masala ==

# “ I had a very secure income and compared to a lot of my peers, a very comfortable life for a 27 year old, But after i came up with the the idea for Masala Masala, i just couldn’t stop. It was like an infection.” - Priya Lakhani.

== Kitcatr Nohr Alexander Shaw ==

# "A key part of winning business would be coming up with great ideas and presentations to pitch to prospective clients. However, this necessary creative process could take weeks and even months, with no guarantee of success at the end." - DL

== We Are Social ==

# "One of the ways We Are Social kept its overheads low from the start was in its marketing.'" - DL

== Marmalade PR ==

# "Marmalade aimed to solve what they saw as an ongoing problem in the PR industry." - DL

== Impact International ==

# "Good people are invaluable in a recession: companies that invest in training have a skilled and productive workforce that, at the end of the day, will help them survive, an asset over companies with less skills to offer." - DL

== Foxtons ==

# "It rapidly became apparent to him that if you weren’t different, you wouldn’t have any advantage over the established brands." - DL

# "Foxtons quickly learns from this devastating period and took the decision to diversify. " - DL

# "It turned out Jon sold just at the right time. Five months later, in October 2007, the US Enterprise, Foxtons Inc filed for bankruptcy. (Due to US 2008 Property Crash)" - DL

== Dunnhumby ==

# “None of this had ever been done on this scale before, so it wasn’t a matter of doing it faster than someone else, it was about being the first ever to achieve it.” - Edwina Dunn

# “People still need to buy food, even in a recession, so that market is still relatively stable.” - Edwina Dunn

== Red or Dead ==

# “We were buying clothes for 10p and selling then for £10, easy.” - Wayne Hemingway

# “If you have a good idea that excites people, you have a chance. If you are starting a corner shop and there are dozens in the area already, you won’t get anywhere.” - Wayne Hemingway

== Go Sustainable ==

# “You can do the business plan yourself but the challenge is writing just in a language that will appeal to investors.” - Franz Hutcheson

# "Consequently, Franz sustained a loss of £42,000 in his first year of trading, with most of his cash flow spent on training, marketing, and traveling - he was so determined to make the business grow that he was prepared to travel anywhere in the UK." - DL

=== END OF BOOK ===