Startup Leadership How Savvy Entrepreneurs Turn Their Ideas Into Successful Enterprises

Anyone can start a business. But only leaders can succeed.

Most entrepreneurs know the long odds: only a fraction of them will lead their enterprises through the rocky stages of growth to launch self-sustaining companies. Very few know how to outflank the failures that await them at every turn, including the most painful?being abandoned by key members of their team or getting pushed out by their board just as their business starts to generate real value.

Derek Lidow is on a mission to improve these odds and change these outcomes. Throughout his long career?as CEO, innovator, and entrepreneur?he has tested virtually every aspect of launching a business. Lidow now argues that success is far less dependent upon a firm?s idea or any grand strategy than it is upon something more personal: leadership. Emerging companies have specific leadership requirements, stage by fast-moving stage. Few founders have been able to leverage the tremendous power of this underrecognized reality?until now.

Startup Leadership demonstrates how founders can adopt the skills that are required at each stage of their journey. Whether you are at the idea stage or managing a more mature enterprise, you can start to recognize the fundamental conflict: how to balance your selfish drives with the more selfless leadership required by the organization at any given time. The book shows you how to achieve this balance by:

• Assessing your unique motivations, traits, and skills
• Creating a personal leadership strategy that leverages your strengths and mitigates your weaknesses
• Mastering how to lead teams, including boards
• Understanding the five prerequisites for driving change
• Taking control of your inevitable crises, thereby strengthening your team and your leadership

With Lidow?s help, you will learn how to become the startup leader your business needs, and you?ll move forward with your plans with greater confidence and success.

Preface ix

1 Success Requires More Than Entrepreneurship 1

Part One Prerequisites: Mastering The Skills of Entrepreneurial Leadership

2 Are You Selfish Enough to Be Selfless? 17

3 Enterprises Are Needy 33

4 Building Relationships 50

5 Motivating Others 83

6 Leading Change 94

7 Creating a Personal Leadership Strategy 113

Part Two Application of Entrepreneurial Leadership Skills

8 Strategizing Fragile Growth 129

9 Organizing to Succeed 146

10 Hiring and Firing 164

11 Leading Teams 176

12 Leading Through Crises 197

13 The Selfish Rewards of Selfless Entrepreneurial Acts 211

Appendix A Motivations, Traits, and Skills 223

Appendix B The Five Essential Entrepreneurial Leadership Skills 225

Appendix C Characteristics of Projects, Processes, and Culture 226

Appendix D Characteristics of Enterprises and Their Leaders in Stages One Through Four 228

Appendix E Relationship Building and the Benefits and Costs of Cooperation, Competition, and Retreat 233

Appendix F The Five Prerequisites of Change (The Five Ducks) 236

Appendix G Ten Basic Strategic Questions 237

Appendix H Five Phases of Crisis Resolution 239

Notes 240

Acknowledgments 246

About the Author 249

Index 251

Derek Lidow is a longtime global CEO, innovator, and entrepreneur. Among other accomplishments, Lidow is widely known as one of the world’s top experts on the electronics industry; his contributions range from patents to value chain applications that have forever improved companies as diverse as Sony, Samsung, Philips, Goldman Sachs, and IBM.

Today, Lidow teaches Entrepreneurial Leadership and Creativity, Innovation, and Design at Princeton University. He keynotes on the subject of startup leadership and is a media commentator; Lidow’s coverage to date includes the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Forbes, Bloomberg, the Economist, Nikkei, Reuters, and Taipei Times, as well as many top bloggers.

Prior to joining Princeton’s faculty, Lidow was founder and CEO of iSuppli, which he sold to IHS in 2010 for over $100 million. Lidow’s degrees are from Princeton and Stanford, where he earned a PhD in applied physics as a Hertz Foundation Fellow. He is based in New York City and Princeton, New Jersey.