Read, watch and/or listen - resources for would be entrepreneurs at Winchester College
I’m doing a workshop at the Winchester College - the School I attended many years ago -on the pros and cons of starting a business (compared to a conventional career) and put together a "reading, listening and viewing" list) for the boys.
This list is not complete, but as my father often said "the best is the enemy of the good". For now it is good enough - a minimum viable list that I would like to share
Mostly free resources for those curious about entrepreneurship
Videos
Ashton Kutcher Speech to Teen Choice Awards https://youtu.be/FNXwKGZHmDc He references Steve Jobs, but shares ideas that are more important - namely - Be really smart, Work hard, Be generous. If you don't know about Kutcher's career outside Hollywood, now is the time to find out.
Watch this advice to Graduating students from University of Western Australia by Tim Minchin. He says 'You don’t have to have a dream. ' https://youtu.be/yoEezZD71sc If you don't know who Tim Minchin is, try Storm or his Three Minutes
Harry Potter Creator J K Rowling talks movingly about the Fringe Benefits of Failure at Harvard. This talk was distributed by TED along with many more great talks, all on TED.com
Watch Derek Sivers on Leadership and How to Start a Movement. These ideas have shaped my life. Helping others with great ideas is a form of leadership.
Watch Richard St John on TED on 8 Secrets of Success and watch Simon Sinek on TED. The “Why?” Question is always so important.
My father John Lucas taught philosophy as part of PPE at Merton College, Oxford University for most of his life. Recruiting the best students and academics is a vital goal for a world class University. In my podcast interview with him here you can hear him talking about how he went about it.
Derek Sivers reviews books he has read and recommends on his blog here https://sivers.org/book It's so useful, You can read his review before you decide if you want to read the book. He does a great job.
For those interested in Management and how to run things, a must read is The E-Myth Revisited - by Michael Gerber. He makes the vital and misunderstaood point that people should work “on” not “on” their businesses if they ever want to grow or exit.
Manager Tools - http://manager-tools.com is an excellent resource. One of the founders talks here "What You’ve Been Taught About Management is Wrong" - Mark Horstman www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA_WxUgIskk
The founders of Zapier.com run their business with Manager Tools. As I said to the boys at Winchester College, a test of a manager is whether he or she knows the names of the children of the people who report to him. Why does it matter ? Watch the video if you can't work it out.
How to Start a Startup by Sam Altman Y Combinator www.youtube.com/channel/UCxIJaCMEptJjxmmQgGFsnCg there so much you can learn from these.
The Personal MBA - by Josh Kaufman Not everyone can or should go to business school. This is an excellent introduction to the things that really matter.
The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz
Ben is one of the founders of a16z... It is compelling in that this book makes very real the kind of challenges you face in real life, and won't meet in the classroom. More great content here https://a16z.com/podcasts/
Stanford eCorner podcasts http://ecorner.stanford.edu/podcasts has excellent material - often by Silicon Valley's leading entrepreneurs.
Andrew Warner's Mixergy.com podcast for entrepreneur stories is excellent.
To stay in touch with latest trends the Wired podcast is great http://www.wired.co.uk/podcasts Since this post first went I line I learned from James Temperton, Digital Editor at WIRED UK- who is one of the hosts of their podcast that they received a special Lovie award as per here
The Economist has the best business writing in the world (and co incidentally Economist Radio got the Gold Prize in the same awards ceremony - one place above Wired).
Custom Google News searches – if you are interested in the Leather goods business then for example this and Google News Alerts if you have a business idea, or are in business a few well chosen Google Alerts keep you up to speed.
Feedback welcome, Let me know what you find useful from this list.
Richard