Backstory and USP
Scrolling through Quora yesterday, a question caught my eye. “What are 10 game-changing books that you must read?” Usually I hate these types of questions, however one book on the list caught my interest: Richard Branson’s Autobiography Losing My Virginity. I was intrigued by both the pithy title and visionary book cover.
Below are some in-depth meditations gleaned from the pages of the autobiography that you could apply. If you were looking for a “Top-10 lessons from Richard Branson, than kindly leave now.” However, stay tuned if you want in-depth commentary on the novel without reading the book.
Also included are lists of pages for pertinent information.
#1. “…the best way of learning was to get on and do it.”
#2. Fun is at the core of the way I like to do business and it has been key to everything I’ve done from the outset… I am aware that the idea of business as being fun and creative goes right against the grain of convention, and it’s certainly not how they teach it at some of those business schools, where business means hard grind and lots of ‘discounted cash flows’ and ‘net present values’.
Business is a lifestyle. In a lifestyle I want to have fun, not just look at the numbers. I believe a successful business has to be reflective of the founder’s way of having fun. For Branson, it was simply doing the “seemingly impossible.”
#3.”Business is a fluid, changing substance, and, as far as I’m concerned, the group will never stand still.”
Most people miss the point of business being “fluid” and ever changing. There is a ton of talk in the entrepreneurship space of “rapid iterations” and “constant feedback,” however, very few provide the analogy I think about for business being ever changing. Thing about surfing the face of the wave, it is fluid your body is constantly adjusting on the wave, just like a business must adjust to the wave of opportunity. One must meet the dynamism of the wave with dynamism of the body. Inertia that meets something moving will be swept away in the undertow. Thus an inert business will be swept away by the dynamic wave of “disruptive” companies.
#4. If we hadn’t reinvented ourselves, we would have gone bust. There was no choice.”
Reinvention is a essential in a modern day society to stay competitive/. To truly explore all your personal facets of human potential, you must continue to meet the constraints in your life by reinventing and expanding yourself. Place yourself in a position where you have to reinvent yourself, where there is no other option and then rock , roll and execute. This reinvention may be called “the Hero’s Journey,” or “crucible” however one thing is for certain: Reinvention leads to Renaissance.
#5. “I am too informal, too restless, and I like to move on.”
For those of you who believe the pyramid hierarchy is the only way to build your business think again. Richard designed his company to fit the way he moves into ideas. He creates unorthodox structures for companies because he has an unorthodox approach to his life. Do the same with the design of your start-up or life. Design it according to the way you function.
#6. “That curiosity has led me down many unexpected paths and introduced me to many extraordinary people”
Branson’s powerful ability to cultivate his curiosity and scratch his own itch is what makes him phenomenal. Branson reminds me of this amazing Ted talk by Ken Robinson “Do School Kill Creativity?” which he emphasizes thinking laterally. Thinking laterally is the ability to produce multiple answers to one question. Branson’s problem is his constant desire to solve and provide the greatest customer experience. He takes this problem and searches far and wide and thinks laterally into different fields.
Start to find ways to think laterally. This is the first step to being able to see opportunity.
#7. “made me realise just how slim the line is between genius and insanity and between determination and stubbornness. Yet again, I thank my lucky stars to have had the stability of a family around me during all the years of turmoil that Virgin has had to navigate without the balance sheet of a multinational corporation or the luxury of a cosy state monopoly”
#8. I love the challenge of learning about industries I know nothing about. At school, I had no interest in chemistry. Now I wanted to learn everything there was to know about ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, ISO butanol, methane and carbon; the best products to make fuels from
Whatever subject you jump into hop into what you are curious about and then learn backwards from there.