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Worthless, Impossible and Stupid: how Contrarian Entrepreneurs Create and Capture Extraordinary Value by Daniel Isenberg
PROFESSOR, entrepreneur, investor and policy adviser Daniel Isenberg has a unique perspective on entrepreneurship.
He has worked across the globe with entrepreneurs and agencies promoting entrepreneurial activity for 31 years.
The first part of this book dispels three myths about entrepreneurs.
Myth number one is that entrepreneurs must be innovators.
The reality is that extraordinary value is often created by finding gaps in existing markets.
Isenberg has coined the term “minnovation” to describe “that unexpected twist on an existing idea” that so commonly describes entrepreneurial activities.
An innovative idea does not make the inventor an entrepreneur. It is only when the innovation is turned into tangible value that the act of entrepreneurship has occurred.
Most importantly, only a small part of the value is in the idea itself, most of the value is in the realisation of the idea.
Isenberg notes that many governments do not support non-innovative entrepreneurship, mistakenly thinking that they add no social benefit.
No product can be less innovative than generic drugs, the copies of existing drugs once their 20-year patent protection has expired.
Robert Wessman of Iceland has built the fifth-largest generic pharmaceuticals company in the world, Activis. It employs 11 000 people in 40 countries, producing 650 products in 21 manufacturing plants. He achieved this in eight years.
At Activis, an employee gets one point for a brilliant idea and 10 points for planning it. He gets 100 points for successful implementation, for that is entrepreneurship.
If you had R10 000, would you invest it with an innovator or an entrepreneur?
A second myth is that entrepreneurs must be experts in their fields. Clearly years of experience and depth of knowledge are not a disadvantage, but they are not a necessity.
Abhi Shah founded the Clutch Group which manages the work of 400 hundred lawyers in the US, UK and India.
He is not a lawyer or a software engineer. The Clutch Group is a legal process outsourcing company with annual revenues of $25m and aggressive growth prospects.
The company does complex, time-consuming and detailed work usually handled by large and expensive law firms. Using Clutch’s international network, proprietary software systems and expertise, they are able to reduce costs and maintain quality.
Unlike so many business processing outsource firms in India, the Clutch Group does not do labour intensive, low value, administrative work.
The Clutch Group was Shah’s response to the problem he identified in the legal profession – lawyers have great salaries, but not great lives.
Many of them were unhappy, not with the profession of law, but with the working conditions. Shah knew there had to be a business opportunity lurking.
Myth number three is that entrepreneurs must be young.
Google “youth” and “entrepreneurship” and you get 18 million responses, says Isenberg. Google “old age” and “entrepreneurship” and you get only three million responses.
Many of the entrepreneurs described in this book are hardly “youth”.
Gabi Meron was 45 when he launched his first venture, Given Imaging.
The company produces a capsule with a miniature camera, a battery, a light and a radio transmitter that can be swallowed, like a pill, by anyone.
It is used to detect cancers in the small bowel, usually deadly because they go undetected until too late.
Carl Bistany was 42 when he took over his family’s schools, SABIS. This entrepreneur took the innovated step of turning schools into a replica of an assembly line rather than away from it.
He took an unusual view of systematising the process of educating children so it can be monitored, measured, resourced efficiently, and profitable.
SABIS schools are in upper percentiles on all outcome measures, including standard test scores and university acceptance.
The title of the book Worthless, Impossible and Stupid comes for the perception of the entrepreneurial endeavour before it has become an undeniable success.
This is best illustrated by the account of Will Dean’s “Tough Mudder” venture, devised while he was studying at Harvard Business School.
Tough Mudder is a 10-12 mile obstacle course where participants run, crawl, and slide through thick mud. They also need to dash through fire, hurl themselves into icy water, and subject themselves to 10 000 volt shocks from hanging wires.
This is probably the toughest event on the planet.
At Harvard’s annual business plan competition Tough Mudder was judged as very niche, very difficult to scale and with an unclear value proposition. This is a polite way of saying “worthless, impossible, and stupid”.
Will Dean who worked in counterterrorism for the British government, together with his partner who had been through Special Forces training, saw the opportunity in mass endurance sports like marathons.
In 2011 alone, they generated revenues of over $20m from Tough Mudder events with margins of 20%.
Entrepreneurship is not the obvious or safe career choice.
The entrepreneurs this book is dealing with are not the people who take over a limping business, pump some money in, and manage it.
They are the creators of something new and successful, even from an old idea. Tough Mudder events are different from the highly profitable Boston Marathon only in type, not concept.
A universal theme of the book is the excessive difficulties the entrepreneur must endure to succeed.
Not one account is of a smooth ride to success. To quote the character Rocky from the movie of the same name: “It ain’t about how hard you can hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving… That’s how winning is done.”
Readability: Light ---+- Serious
Insights: High -+--- Low
Practical: High ---+- Low
- Fin24
*Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy. Views expressed are his own.
PROFESSOR, entrepreneur, investor and policy adviser Daniel Isenberg has a unique perspective on entrepreneurship.
He has worked across the globe with entrepreneurs and agencies promoting entrepreneurial activity for 31 years.
The first part of this book dispels three myths about entrepreneurs.
Myth number one is that entrepreneurs must be innovators.
The reality is that extraordinary value is often created by finding gaps in existing markets.
Isenberg has coined the term “minnovation” to describe “that unexpected twist on an existing idea” that so commonly describes entrepreneurial activities.
An innovative idea does not make the inventor an entrepreneur. It is only when the innovation is turned into tangible value that the act of entrepreneurship has occurred.
Most importantly, only a small part of the value is in the idea itself, most of the value is in the realisation of the idea.
Isenberg notes that many governments do not support non-innovative entrepreneurship, mistakenly thinking that they add no social benefit.
No product can be less innovative than generic drugs, the copies of existing drugs once their 20-year patent protection has expired.
Robert Wessman of Iceland has built the fifth-largest generic pharmaceuticals company in the world, Activis. It employs 11 000 people in 40 countries, producing 650 products in 21 manufacturing plants. He achieved this in eight years.
At Activis, an employee gets one point for a brilliant idea and 10 points for planning it. He gets 100 points for successful implementation, for that is entrepreneurship.
If you had R10 000, would you invest it with an innovator or an entrepreneur?
A second myth is that entrepreneurs must be experts in their fields. Clearly years of experience and depth of knowledge are not a disadvantage, but they are not a necessity.
Abhi Shah founded the Clutch Group which manages the work of 400 hundred lawyers in the US, UK and India.
He is not a lawyer or a software engineer. The Clutch Group is a legal process outsourcing company with annual revenues of $25m and aggressive growth prospects.
The company does complex, time-consuming and detailed work usually handled by large and expensive law firms. Using Clutch’s international network, proprietary software systems and expertise, they are able to reduce costs and maintain quality.
Unlike so many business processing outsource firms in India, the Clutch Group does not do labour intensive, low value, administrative work.
The Clutch Group was Shah’s response to the problem he identified in the legal profession – lawyers have great salaries, but not great lives.
Many of them were unhappy, not with the profession of law, but with the working conditions. Shah knew there had to be a business opportunity lurking.
Myth number three is that entrepreneurs must be young.
Google “youth” and “entrepreneurship” and you get 18 million responses, says Isenberg. Google “old age” and “entrepreneurship” and you get only three million responses.
Many of the entrepreneurs described in this book are hardly “youth”.
Gabi Meron was 45 when he launched his first venture, Given Imaging.
The company produces a capsule with a miniature camera, a battery, a light and a radio transmitter that can be swallowed, like a pill, by anyone.
It is used to detect cancers in the small bowel, usually deadly because they go undetected until too late.
Carl Bistany was 42 when he took over his family’s schools, SABIS. This entrepreneur took the innovated step of turning schools into a replica of an assembly line rather than away from it.
He took an unusual view of systematising the process of educating children so it can be monitored, measured, resourced efficiently, and profitable.
SABIS schools are in upper percentiles on all outcome measures, including standard test scores and university acceptance.
The title of the book Worthless, Impossible and Stupid comes for the perception of the entrepreneurial endeavour before it has become an undeniable success.
This is best illustrated by the account of Will Dean’s “Tough Mudder” venture, devised while he was studying at Harvard Business School.
Tough Mudder is a 10-12 mile obstacle course where participants run, crawl, and slide through thick mud. They also need to dash through fire, hurl themselves into icy water, and subject themselves to 10 000 volt shocks from hanging wires.
This is probably the toughest event on the planet.
At Harvard’s annual business plan competition Tough Mudder was judged as very niche, very difficult to scale and with an unclear value proposition. This is a polite way of saying “worthless, impossible, and stupid”.
Will Dean who worked in counterterrorism for the British government, together with his partner who had been through Special Forces training, saw the opportunity in mass endurance sports like marathons.
In 2011 alone, they generated revenues of over $20m from Tough Mudder events with margins of 20%.
Entrepreneurship is not the obvious or safe career choice.
The entrepreneurs this book is dealing with are not the people who take over a limping business, pump some money in, and manage it.
They are the creators of something new and successful, even from an old idea. Tough Mudder events are different from the highly profitable Boston Marathon only in type, not concept.
A universal theme of the book is the excessive difficulties the entrepreneur must endure to succeed.
Not one account is of a smooth ride to success. To quote the character Rocky from the movie of the same name: “It ain’t about how hard you can hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving… That’s how winning is done.”
Readability: Light ---+- Serious
Insights: High -+--- Low
Practical: High ---+- Low
- Fin24
*Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy. Views expressed are his own.
