Download or read book Billion Or Bust Growing a Tech Company in Texas written by Lanham Napier and published by Braun Ink. This book was released on 2019-01-01 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surprise Bestseller! "Billion or Bust!" by Lanham Napier offers a gripping perspective on entrepreneurship, cloud computing, and the strategic effort to build a billion-dollar company. Napier, the former CEO of Rackspace, transformed the fledgling hosting company into a global leader in cloud computing services. Employing a customer-centric approach known as "Fanatical Support," he navigated the company through the tech industry's twists and turns. In “Billion or Bust!” Napier explains the strategic and technical aspects that undergirded Rackspace's growth. A strong, customer-focused culture, he argues, drives innovation. Throughout the book, Napier emphasizes the importance of people in Rackspace’s success, highlighting stories of the Rackspace team’s resilience and creativity. Napier gives readers a comprehensive blueprint for building and scaling a successful tech company, blending personal experiences with strategic insights and in-depth analysis. In the process, he examines cloud computing and its evolution, startup scaling, tech industry leadership, and strategic decision-making and risk management. For anyone interested in entrepreneurship, technology, and business leadership, “Billion or Bust!” is an essential read. "BILLION OR BUST! is a lively, thoughtful, and engaging story of a man, a business, and a city, told with a thoroughly Texan degree of vigor and verve." - TheIndieReader

Download or read book Sales First Growing Our Company the Old Fashioned Way the ColorMatrix Story written by Becca Braun and published by Braun Ink. This book was released on 2020-09-30 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Sales First!: Growing Our Company the Old-Fashioned Way, the ColorMatrix Story" by John Haugh and Michael Shaughnessy reveals the remarkable journey of two Midwestern chemical salesmen who built a $400 million business without venture capital. In the 1980s, Haugh and Shaughnessy discovered a novel way to add color to plastics, an incremental innovation with enormous potential in the global plastics industry. Lacking the connections and experience to secure venture capital, they turned to a straightforward, old-fashioned strategy: focusing on sales. Driving their beat-up cars around the Ohio River Valley, they committed to a single guiding principle for every decision about customers, capital, or human resources: “Will it generate sales quickly?” This relentless sales-first mindset allowed them to grow their company, ColorMatrix, to over $100 million in revenues. Their dedication paid off when they eventually recapitalized the company and sold it for over $400 million, creating hundreds of jobs in Rust Belt Cleveland along the way. "Sales First!" not only chronicles the business strategies and entrepreneurial spirit that propelled ColorMatrix to success but also highlights the importance of maintaining strong personal relationships in business. John and Mike managed their partnership so well that they never had a significant disagreement, showcasing the power of mutual respect and shared vision. This inspiring narrative offers valuable lessons for entrepreneurs and business leaders on achieving growth through sheer determination and a focus on immediate sales, making it a must-read for anyone looking to build a successful company without relying on external funding. “Sales First!” is part of the Braun Collection, a suite of business education resources that includes bestsellers such as “Billion or Bust!” by former Rackspace CEO Lanham Napier.

Download or read book Billion Or Bust Growing a Tech Company in Texas written by Lanham Napier and published by . This book was released on 2019-05 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Billion or Bust! As president and then CEO of cloud provider Rackspace, Lanham Napier grew the company from $5 million to over $1 billion in revenues and $5 billion in market value while creating thousands of jobs. A lifelong Texan, he grew the company in his home state, overseeing the development of new headquarters in San Antonio and leading the company's IPO. When Microsoft, Amazon, and Google entered the industry in force, everything changed . . . including Lanham's relationship with Rackspace executives and the company's board of directors. Lanham Napier is an entrepreneur, innovator, and investor. He and his team at BuildGroup believe in providing smart capital to passionate entrepreneurs who want to build companies for the long haul. Lanham developed his ideas about risk capital through his work as CEO of Rackspace, a formerly public cloud company headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. He grew up a proud Texan, enamored with the state climate, history, diversity, friendliness, and traditions. In his adolescence, Lanham developed a driving desire to improve the world through creating jobs for people (especially Texans). On a date with the woman he would soon marry, he said about himself, "I want to create jobs." Lanham went to Rice University and then Harvard Business School, and he became knowledgeable about high finance through jobs at Merrill Lynch and a private equity fund. When the internet boom hit in the 1990s, Rackspace.com, a managed hosting company founded by several San Antonio innovators, came knocking at Lanham's door. He joined as CFO, with the main responsibility for taking the company public. He considered this the ideal opportunity to create jobs. Before the company could go public, however, the economic bubble burst. Instead of raising new capital to hire people, Lanham oversaw large-scale layoffs-not at all what he had envisioned. Lanham became president of Rackspace and helped Rackers focus on generating profits and making the company as financially self-sustaining as possible. Under his leadership, and with a dedicated and motivated team, the company gained dominance in its industry-leading Fanatical Support TM offering-a differentiated service that gained Rackspace thousands of small and large-business customers. After Lanham was promoted to CEO, the once-tiny cloud company grew so quickly, it converted a defunct mall into phenomenal new headquarters and underwent an IPO. By the time Lanham left in 2014, Rackspace served over 300,000 customers and had over a billion in revenues and $5 billion in market value. It also employed over 5,000 people, largely in the San Antonio area. Lanham details the replacement of one set of 'managed hosting' competitors (telecom companies) by a new set of cloud competitors-Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. Their aggressive entry into the cloud space beginning around 2006 forced Rackspace to continuously differentiate its high-quality offerings, doubling down on Fanatical Support and developing new products and services. The stresses of this tsunami of competition that collectively held cash stores unrivaled in business history caused a formerly strong partnership among Rackspace executives to pull at the seams. The deterioration of the partnership had repercussions at the board and investor levels, as well. Without leadership consensus, the pressing decisions Lanham needed to make as CEO (and board member) took longer and became harder. Lanham's ability to operate with urgency and clear direction became a daily battle, and he left the company.

Download or read book Managing Priorities written by Harry Max and published by Rosenfeld Media. This book was released on 2024-05-14 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Because time, attention, and resources are finite, wise prioritization lies at the heart of any flourishing organization or meaningful life. Yet there's surprisingly little actionable advice on how to do it well—and many seductive reasons to avoid it entirely. This approachable, psychologically astute, and deeply practical book has the potential to change all that. Reading it is well worth your time." —Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals Managing Priorities is your guide to prioritizing anything—anytime and anywhere. Harry Max digs into the best practices for prioritization at Apple, DreamWorks, NASA, Adobe, Google, Microsoft, and beyond, and brings them together in a single, practical method that you can apply step by step. Who Should Read This Book? Every business person who is even remotely interested in prioritization should read Managing Priorities. Whatever you need to prioritize—tasks, goals, OKRs, projects—this book is for you. Specific chapters are dedicated to what needs to happen and when for individuals, teams, and whole organizations. Takeaways Learn what prioritization is. Gain insight into the costs of not prioritizing intentionally. Explore different methods of prioritization, including the Eisenhower Matrix, the Analytic Hierarchy Process, the Max Priorities Pyramid, Paired Comparison, Stack Ranking, and more (highlighted in the Appendix). Apply the author's DEGAP® method of prioritization with its five phases: Decide, Engage, Gather, Arrange, Prioritize. Identify, understand, and address your current state or lack of prioritization (the context of your problem, the people involved, and the issues surrounding timing). Use a scale to differentiate items to prioritize and arrange them appropriately. Select an approach to prioritization that works for your specific situation.

Download or read book VC written by Tom Nicholas and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-09 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An incisive history of the venture-capital industry.” —New Yorker “An excellent and original economic history of venture capital.” —Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution “A detailed, fact-filled account of America’s most celebrated moneymen.” —New Republic “Extremely interesting, readable, and informative...Tom Nicholas tells you most everything you ever wanted to know about the history of venture capital, from the financing of the whaling industry to the present multibillion-dollar venture funds.” —Arthur Rock “In principle, venture capital is where the ordinarily conservative, cynical domain of big money touches dreamy, long-shot enterprise. In practice, it has become the distinguishing big-business engine of our time...[A] first-rate history.” —New Yorker VC tells the riveting story of how the venture capital industry arose from America’s longstanding identification with entrepreneurship and risk-taking. Whether the venture is a whaling voyage setting sail from New Bedford or the latest Silicon Valley startup, VC is a state of mind as much as a way of doing business, exemplified by an appetite for seeking extreme financial rewards, a tolerance for failure and experimentation, and a faith in the promise of innovation to generate new wealth. Tom Nicholas’s authoritative history takes us on a roller coaster of entrepreneurial successes and setbacks. It describes how iconic firms like Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia invested in Genentech and Apple even as it tells the larger story of VC’s birth and evolution, revealing along the way why venture capital is such a quintessentially American institution—one that has proven difficult to recreate elsewhere.

Download or read book Department of Defense Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1994 written by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Appropriations. Subcommittee on Defense and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Mega Mergers and Acquisitions written by B. Kumar and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-11-14 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A casebook that discusses all the mega mergers and acquisitions in terms of value, that have happened in different industry sectors such as pharmacy, technology, telecommunications, media and entertainment, electrical and electronics, energy, finance, consumer goods, metals, and automobile and airlines.

Download or read book Small Business Innovation Research written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Science. Subcommittee on Environment, Technology, and Standards and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

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Download or read book Information Technology and R and D written by États-Unis. Congress. Office of Technology Assessment and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1985 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

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Download or read book Black Enterprise written by and published by . This book was released on 2000-06 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: BLACK ENTERPRISE is the ultimate source for wealth creation for African American professionals, entrepreneurs and corporate executives. Every month, BLACK ENTERPRISE delivers timely, useful information on careers, small business and personal finance.

Download or read book Kiplinger s Personal Finance written by and published by . This book was released on 2006-05 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The most trustworthy source of information available today on savings and investments, taxes, money management, home ownership and many other personal finance topics.

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Download or read book Private Capital written by Stefan W. Hepp and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2024-01-23 with total page 727 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Private Capital: The Complete Guide to Private Markets Investing, renowned private markets investor and expert Dr. Stefan W. Hepp delivers an insightful and comprehensive exploration of the history, nature, and influence of private market investing. The author offers a robust examination of the key practical and conceptual issues faced by investors as they move forward into the future. In the book, you'll find fulsome discussions of the rise of private market investment following the conclusion of World War II, as well as why the limited partnership became the dominant investment vehicle for private equity. You'll also discover the importance of the convergence of technology, government, academia, and venture capital that came to define what we now know as Silicon Valley. The book includes: Explanations of the emergence of buyout firms, as well as why and how buyouts differ from other forms of mergers and acquisitions Examinations of the explosive growth of private equity and other private asset classes since the turn of the millennium Discussions of the issues set to dominate the future of private markets, including ESG investing, value creation, unicorns, special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), and more A must-read book for regulators, investors, asset managers, entrepreneurs, founders, and other businesspeople, Private Capital will earn a place on the bookshelves of anyone with a stake or interest in private equity and other private asset classes.

Download or read book CorpTech Directory of Technology Companies written by and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 1714 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This multi-volume directory which lists more than 40,000 companies is indexed by company name, geographic area, non-U.S. parent companies, technology, product code, CorpTech code, and SIC code. Profiles are provided for each company listed, and company rankings given under each industry.

Download or read book Innovation Policy written by Nicholas S. Vonortas and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-12-10 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a concise introduction to important aspects of contemporary innovation policy, with particular emphasis on its impact on economic growth and development. It addresses a non-specialist audience interested in quickly building background knowledge, getting familiar with the terminology, and understanding core concerns and debates in this area of policy. The book has its origins in a more extensive report to the World Bank prepared to impart background information to middle- and upper-level policy decision-makers and analysts as well as stakeholders from industry and universities from developing countries prior to engaging in intensive “how-to” policy training. Our audience also includes upper-level undergraduate and graduate students embarking on the study of innovation policy. Featuring contributions from leading scholars and policy experts, this volume references critical readings presents a wide array of data, on the following topics: Fundamentals of Innovation Policy for Growth and Development University Entrepreneurship Strategic Alliances / Knowledge-Intensive Partnerships Clusters / Science Parks / Knowledge Business Incubators High Risk Finance Intellectual Property, Standards