Today’s Book: Small Giants by Bo Burlingham – Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big

The latest business “aspiration” is to build the fastest unicorn (startup with valuation of more than USD 1 billion). Good! Now, how to achieve that? Here is an advice from Paul Graham, Co-founder of Y Combinator (seed accelerator that launched 2,000 companies – combined valuation of the top ones over $155 Billion):

You can either build something a large number of people want a small amount, or something a small number of people want a large amount. Choose the latter.

The paradoxical idea is to “do things that don’t scale” before possibly making it bigger.

This is where the book “Small Giants” can serve as a great guide especially if you are someone who:

1) Challenges the traditional notions of doing business
2) Prefers to be purpose and passion driven
3) Deeply cares about employees, all stakeholders and related communities
4) Focused on creating extraordinary value for customers

In this book, the authors profiles 14 companies (ranging from 2 people company to a company with $350 million revenues) who choose not to grow too big to ensure highest quality of product or service and being people and community friendly.