Amazon.comJohn Lusk and Kyle Harrison seemed slightly out of their minds when, unlike their fellow MBAs, they skipped on flashy, lucrative offers from dot-coms to become entrepreneurs. Specifically, to produce and sell a computer mouse designed to look like a golf-club head (a state-of-the-art titanium driver to be exact). "I wanted to feel the pain of starting a company," Lusk writes in this clear and insightful memoir, "to go into debt, have my ego crushed and experience first-hand the thrill of working like a dog for months without a paycheck." Since he also expected to make a million in two years, it"s not surprising that all these come to pass. The duo struggle with the fundamentals of making and selling, run-ins with typhoons, shabby off-shore manufacturing, and soon dot-com envy sets in. But when the dot-coms start going belly-up, this little-retail-product-company-that-could shows that the basics of business still apply--a handy lesson for those wondering what happened after the dot-com crash, aswell as any would-be entrepreneurs wanting to make a go of it. --Lesley Reed Book DescriptionThe remarkable journey of two recent B-school grads who shunned dot-com opportunities for a distinctly different start-up experience.
It all started late one night at The Ginger Man, a popular restaurant in Dallas, Texas. Using the back of a beer coaster and the bartender"s pen, Kyle Harrison, in a moment of inspiration, began sketching an unusual computer mouse, shaped like the head of a driver golf club. He took the idea with him to the Wharton School of Business, where he managed to impress his roommate, John Lusk. Upon graduation, they bravely but somewhat naïvely set forth to launch their company, Platinum Concepts, Inc., and its flagship product, MouseDriver™. Settling in San Francisco in an apartment that doubled as home and worldwide business headquarters, they had a front-row seat to the dot-com boom--watching their classmates rake in piles of cash and stock options, while they financed their venture with their own credit cards.
The MouseDriver™ Chronicles is the riveting, one-of-a-kind narrative that chronicles their entrepreneurial journey. It takes us behind the scenes of the authors" tumultuous first two years of business, years marked by endless corporate cold calling, multiple failed attempts to find a distributor, and even a typhoon that derailed their very first shipment of MouseDrivers.
A must-read for anyone who wants to start a business or wonders what it is like to do so, The MouseDriver™ Chronicles will inform, inspire, and renew our faith in the American spirit to succeed against all odds. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге The MouseDriver Chronicles: The True-Life Adventures of Two First-Time Entrepreneurs (John Lusk)