A forceful, helpful, and smoothly readable collection of nuggets of CEO wisdom for entrepreneurs.
A famous CEO and entrepreneur offers his observations about life and business.
Thalheimer, the founder and former CEO of The Sharper Image when it was dominating its corner of the retail market—$750 million a year in revenues, 200 stores, 4,000 employees, and, of course, the famous catalog—now runs The Sharper Fund, a private investment fund. In these pages, he conveys all the lessons he’s learned along the way on matters large and small, everything from relevant technology to hiring and firing, cash flow, corporate savings, and many aspects of customer service. As he touches on each of these subjects, the author draws on his long experience in order to dispense some insights—acknowledging up front that his fellow entrepreneurs at any level of development will find some of these tips more useful than others. “Short and personal (but not too personal) conversations keep you in touch with the human side of the people you work with,” he writes at one point, spelling out what might otherwise be taken as a given. “Check in with them every month or so.” Thalheimer’s tone is brisk and very inviting; he comes across as an ideal boss, the type readers may have dreamed of encountering, the kind who’s always open to chatting and yet is still firm in leading. Readers of this category of business literature will be prepared for bromides, and they’ll certainly encounter plenty of them here. Like most CEOs looking back on their early endeavors, the author often resorts to truisms, such as “When you start, you need people around you who get things done,” and “It is crucial that you treat suppliers with respect.” Both the obvious observations and the original tips are always couched in a friendly, authoritative tone—Thalheimer is certainly correct in predicting that even experienced entrepreneurs will find thought-provoking ideas in these pages.
A forceful, helpful, and smoothly readable collection of nuggets of CEO wisdom for entrepreneurs.Pub Date: Dec. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5445-1791-9
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A diverting history of the makers of Redhook—merry pranksters of the brewing business—mildly tainted by Seattleite Krebs’s idolatrous tone. From a tumbledown converted transmission shop in Ballard, Wash., came Redhook Ale, an offbeat craft beer that was to the brewing business what Starbucks was to coffee: a blast of fresh air, loaded with character and flavor. And little wonder, as both were the brainchild of Gordon Bowker—in Redhook’s case, along with Paul Shipman and the whole brew house cast. Redhook cultivated an eccentric image as the maker of an eccentric product, an ale that reviewers at first described as tasting “like bananas.” The wild northwest yeast gave it distinction, claimed Redhook’s makers; it was the Belgian style they were really after, they claimed. Actually, the yeast was contaminated, but by then they had a following, so why announce their continuous tinkering? Still, tinker they did, finally getting the yeast right with a chemist’s help, and also going public, the first microbrewer to do so, with a stock offering that shot skyward. The microbrew market has since bottomed out, and Redhook’s bohemian image has been tarnished by expansion that robbed it of its handcrafted cachet. Krebs complements the Redhook story with lots of entertaining craft brew tidbits (what puts the steam in Anchor, when is a bottom-fermenting beer an ale), but he also creates a godlike aura around both Bowker and Shipman, as if no one else ever had a good idea when it came to fashioning authentic local products that educated the American palate. The early years make the story here—a time when food and drink were in as much ferment as Redhook’s bitter—and Krebs does tell the story with flair. (20 b&w photos, not seen)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1998
ISBN: 1-56858-106-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1998
Perhaps not for the general public, but a must-have for those in the business of business.
A lively and informative narrative of product-based entrepreneurship in the virtual-product age, by business-school roommates who built and sold a better mouse.
A computer mouse, that is, and shaped like a golf driver at that. Lusk and Harrison were both on track to graduate from Wharton in 1999, with career prospects of an eminently respectable and highly lucrative sort regularly dangled before them. They chose instead to create a company called Platinum Concepts, whose first product was said mouse resembling the head of a golf driver. Harrison took the title of president; Lusk became marketing vice-president. They designed their product, developed business and marketing plans, and established their company base in their San Francisco apartment. Adventures and misadventures followed on the road to profit. Product samples manufactured in Hong Kong arrived; design adjustments consumed considerable time and energy. They learned that the buying period for the Christmas retail season had already passed and realized they had neglected key aspects of product distribution, essential to wholesale-to-retail marketing. New strategies were developed, and the company made its first sale: 200 MouseDrivers to Bank of America. Assorted personalities the company encountered included a nearly narcoleptic sales representative and a psycho-gonzo retail consultant; successes included contacts established with suppliers in the promotional products industry and at trade shows. The company made a profit, and the tale ends with Platinum Concepts still solvent and operational. The authors’ story is as clean and fast as a Tiger Woods tee-shot; they share copious amounts of information with generosity, humor, and all-American spirit.
Perhaps not for the general public, but a must-have for those in the business of business.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7382-0573-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Perseus
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2001
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
