When you see a book being recommended by one person or another every other day, you know you have to pick up a copy and read it. I finally got around to doing it after many months of hearing about it.
I wish I had read the book sooner.
Peter Thiel gives some pretty unconventional advice that’s grounded in good reasoning and he also shares some rather interesting perspectives on innovation. In essence, he tackles the idea of copying and creating value – there’s the idea of 1 to n where you copy something that already exists and make it more accessible to more people; and there is, well, 0 to 1 where you actually create new value.
With that as a foundation of understanding, the book then takes an almost step by step approach to how then to create a startup focused on creating that 0 to 1 innovation and surrounding it with the necessary support processes and considerations to build a company that’s able to bring the product to market. It covers everything from selection of co-founders, investors, evaluating the technology, etc. And while the book talks about creating something that improves something by at least 10x of what it is today, it also emphasizes the need to conquer small markets, flying under the radar to avoid alerting competition and a whole lot more practical strategies (that isn’t always what is hyped up in the media).
Big goals, practical approaches peppered with doses of unconventional wisdom.
