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La Mentalidad de Fundador. Cómo superar las crisis de crecimiento previsibles.
¿Por qué es tan difícil alcanzar y sostener un crecimiento rentable? La mayoría de los ejecutivos dirigen sus empresas como si la solución a este problema estuviera en el ámbito externo: encontrar un mercado atractivo, formular la estrategia correcta, conseguir nuevos clientes. Pero Chris Zook y James Allen hallaron que, cuando las compañías no logran alcanzar sus objetivos de crecimiento, en el 90% de los casos las causas principales son internas, no externas: mayor distanciamiento de la fuerza de atención, erosión de la responsabilidad y burocracia. Más aún, las empresas experimentan una serie de crisis internas predecibles a medida que crecen y lo hacen en momentos previsibles. Si estas crisis no se gestionan adecuadamente, pueden llegar a ahogar la capacidad de continuar creciendo, incluso para compañías sanas, y llevar activamente a una declinación. La revelación fundamental de la investigación de Zook y Allen es que la gestión de estos cuellos de botella requiere una "mentalidad de fundador" —actitudes y conductas típicas de un fundador audaz y ambicioso— para recuperar la velocidad, el foco y la conexión con los clientes.
A través de un rico análisis y ejemplos inspiradores, este libro muestra cómo cualquier líder —no solo un fundador— puede inculcar y apalancar la mentalidad de fundador en sus organizaciones y obtener un crecimiento rentable duradero.
"Como fundador, me identifico ampliamente con los temas de LA MENTALIDAD DE FUNDADOR, especialmente en lo que respecta a la abrumadora importancia de la velocidad, el foco específico y la capacidad de invertir en el largo plazo."
—MICHAEL DELL Fundador y CEO, Dell Inc.
A través de un rico análisis y ejemplos inspiradores, este libro muestra cómo cualquier líder —no solo un fundador— puede inculcar y apalancar la mentalidad de fundador en sus organizaciones y obtener un crecimiento rentable duradero.
"Como fundador, me identifico ampliamente con los temas de LA MENTALIDAD DE FUNDADOR, especialmente en lo que respecta a la abrumadora importancia de la velocidad, el foco específico y la capacidad de invertir en el largo plazo."
—MICHAEL DELL Fundador y CEO, Dell Inc.
289 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 7, 2016
665 people are currently reading
3188 people want to read
About the author
Chris Zook
30 books30 followersChris Zook is a business writer and partner at Bain & Company, leading its Global Strategy Practice.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 113 reviews
January 31, 2018
Similarly to "All models are wrong; some models are useful", my view on business books is that some of them are indeed useful. Usefulness of business books comes either from direct applicability to one's current situation, or a general quality of being inspiring. I didn't find this book either inspiring or applicable, but first let me mention positives.
This is a stereotypical business book that meets almost all criteria for this category:
1) A book that could be summarized as an HBR article - check
2) A two-by-two matrix - check
3) A questionnaire to determine one's company place on the matrix - check
4) A supplemental website where one can find more information on authors' consultancy practice - check
5) Numerous stories of CEOs saving companies from perils of insolvency or irrelevancy against all the odds - check
6) New business jargon - check
7) Absence of any data to account for "halo effect" - check and check
In summary, the book is dry and it doesn't offer anything substantively new to stand out in this competitive and repetitive category of books.
This is a stereotypical business book that meets almost all criteria for this category:
1) A book that could be summarized as an HBR article - check
2) A two-by-two matrix - check
3) A questionnaire to determine one's company place on the matrix - check
4) A supplemental website where one can find more information on authors' consultancy practice - check
5) Numerous stories of CEOs saving companies from perils of insolvency or irrelevancy against all the odds - check
6) New business jargon - check
7) Absence of any data to account for "halo effect" - check and check
In summary, the book is dry and it doesn't offer anything substantively new to stand out in this competitive and repetitive category of books.
January 30, 2018
This is one of those books where they take a bunch of their consulting experience and then roll it into a book that repeats itself over and over again. Not worth the read
January 12, 2019
Short book, full with helpful tips, but there is nothing mind-blowing or unique. I agree with most of the tips, but usually, case studies are oversimplified - everything boils down to "simplification" and "listening customer-facing employees". I listened to the audio version and often I had to relisten many parts because I lost my focus.
I recommend you read just the last chapter (definitely the best one!) and read first articles on the book's website - those elements cover entire book.
I recommend you read just the last chapter (definitely the best one!) and read first articles on the book's website - those elements cover entire book.
August 25, 2018
Could have been a magazine article and saved me a lot of time.
June 5, 2016
For Anyone with an Entrepreneurial Spirit
The Founder’s Mentality is a well written, case-study based, analysis of the characteristics needed of business leaders, especially in times of crisis. You don’t have to be the founder of a start-up to benefit from the value of this book. In fact, those who are entrenched in corporate muck could stand to gain a great deal of insight from Zook and Allen’s emphasis on why the founder’s mentality is crucial.
I would recommend this book to anyone who want to make an impact in business. For those who are facing slow growth (or worse), read it now! And for those who are on the climb up, read it to reassure yourself that perseverance and focused simplicity are the keys to success.
I was very pleased to read a complimentary advance copy of this book. It was a great read for me and I recommended it to my customers as well.
The Founder’s Mentality is a well written, case-study based, analysis of the characteristics needed of business leaders, especially in times of crisis. You don’t have to be the founder of a start-up to benefit from the value of this book. In fact, those who are entrenched in corporate muck could stand to gain a great deal of insight from Zook and Allen’s emphasis on why the founder’s mentality is crucial.
I would recommend this book to anyone who want to make an impact in business. For those who are facing slow growth (or worse), read it now! And for those who are on the climb up, read it to reassure yourself that perseverance and focused simplicity are the keys to success.
I was very pleased to read a complimentary advance copy of this book. It was a great read for me and I recommended it to my customers as well.
April 14, 2019
There are some good things in this book but they can be difficult to ferret out. It was interesting to read about the three predictable crises of growth that most companies will encounter. I really loved the last part of the book where they presented ways to avoid these crises or to handle them if they occur. I liked the examples of the companies which have used the various strategies to revitalize their organizations. I wish there was more detail as I had trouble comparing what they said to my own role as a lower level manager. I kept feeling like I needed to be at the top of my company or even my department to be able to really apply what they were saying. I think they could have talked more about how anyone at any level of the company can use the founder's mentality to do a better job.
I was also frustrated at the beginning because the way they organized the book was not helpful. They talked about what each of the three crises were. In the next chapter they described companies that had faced each of the three crises. Then they used the next chapter to discuss how each company had overcome their crisis and now thrived. I think it would have flowed better to have one chapter be about one crisis. Then they could follow that one thing all the way through. Breaking it up left me forgetting about earlier points while I read about something else.
I was also frustrated at the beginning because the way they organized the book was not helpful. They talked about what each of the three crises were. In the next chapter they described companies that had faced each of the three crises. Then they used the next chapter to discuss how each company had overcome their crisis and now thrived. I think it would have flowed better to have one chapter be about one crisis. Then they could follow that one thing all the way through. Breaking it up left me forgetting about earlier points while I read about something else.
June 28, 2019
One of the first things I did enjoy about this book has been summarized by many with this common thread of a summary. It will read something like this. "Through this entire book, it gives inspiring examples of how any leader not only a founder can instill and leverage a founder’s mentality throughout their organization and find lasting, profitable growth".
Completely agree!
So this book takes on the question of "How might one respond to the crises of growth?" How might you reignite the passion and reenergize the organization that now suffers from overload, stall-out or free-fall? Zook and Allen argue in their book The Founder’s Mentality: How to Overcome the Predictable Crises of Growth, that returning to one’s roots is critical.
They identify the roots of the Founder’s Mentality as:
1. Insurgency
2. Frontline obsession
3. Owner’s mindset
Zook and Allen (p. 35) provide a synopsis and more detail for each of these roots as well as specific ways to reestablish the critical elements of the Founder’s Mentality.
In closing this review I will leave you with a question and Zook and Allen's answer (This could be considered a spoiler alert, so proceed with caution or click away at this time and go get the book to discover for yourself).
Final question. How can you as a leader of your organization guide and help your management team recognize the crises of growth and reestablish the Founder’s Mentality?
The potential answer of 9 actions you may take by Zook and Allen, pp 165-183):
1. Pursue “opposites” simultaneously – It is not easy to do, but successful growing businesses must be able to increase their size (i.e., grow) and continue to be agile (i.e., responsive to changing market conditions and customer expectations).
2. Say no to say yes – Carefully evaluate opportunities that are outside your core areas of focus and competencies/capabilities and reserve your resources for those opportunities that best fit what you are really good at.
3. Make 10X investments – Resist the tendency to spread your financial and human resources too broadly and thinly. Be willing to make a “big bet” to renew and reenergize your core.
4. Pursue the root cause – We frequently tend to observe symptoms of unacceptable performance and not dig deep enough to identify the root cause of the stall out from growth. Use the “five why’s” questioning process to drill down to the real cause of the problem.
5. Invest heavily in next-generation leadership – the “graying” of the management team in most agribusiness companies combined with historical underinvestment in mid-career managers have combined to result in a next-generation management vacuum in too many cases.
6. Invest preemptively in building new capabilities – at the same time as investing in next-generation leadership is required, investing more broadly in the capabilities and capacities of the current workforce is also critical. Differentiation and competitive advantage will increasingly come from soft assets, not the hard assets, and leadership and talent management will be essential to build these assets.
7. Focus on long-term goals and horizons – we all struggle with the immediacy syndrome – short-term pay-off goals and financial performance metrics, wanting quick results, investing in short-term projects that may not create long-term value. As growth slows down, the tendency is to double-down on projects/activities/investments that will give a quick pop to current earnings or market share. The founder’s mentality mindset recognizes that short-term survival is essential, but the focus is always on long-term value creation.
8. Become guardians of speed and agility – now the dichotomy – maintain and enhance the ability to respond quickly to changing conditions and the capability to be agile rather than bureaucratic in the decision process. All while focusing on long-term goals rather than short-term financial performance.
9. Share the burden of leadership across the organization – leadership can and should come from all levels of the organization; from the support staff, the sales force, the research lab, the manufacturing floor, the loading dock, the truck drivers- and not just from the C-suite.
I did enjoy this book and hope that you may also.
Completely agree!
So this book takes on the question of "How might one respond to the crises of growth?" How might you reignite the passion and reenergize the organization that now suffers from overload, stall-out or free-fall? Zook and Allen argue in their book The Founder’s Mentality: How to Overcome the Predictable Crises of Growth, that returning to one’s roots is critical.
They identify the roots of the Founder’s Mentality as:
1. Insurgency
2. Frontline obsession
3. Owner’s mindset
Zook and Allen (p. 35) provide a synopsis and more detail for each of these roots as well as specific ways to reestablish the critical elements of the Founder’s Mentality.
In closing this review I will leave you with a question and Zook and Allen's answer (This could be considered a spoiler alert, so proceed with caution or click away at this time and go get the book to discover for yourself).
Final question. How can you as a leader of your organization guide and help your management team recognize the crises of growth and reestablish the Founder’s Mentality?
The potential answer of 9 actions you may take by Zook and Allen, pp 165-183):
1. Pursue “opposites” simultaneously – It is not easy to do, but successful growing businesses must be able to increase their size (i.e., grow) and continue to be agile (i.e., responsive to changing market conditions and customer expectations).
2. Say no to say yes – Carefully evaluate opportunities that are outside your core areas of focus and competencies/capabilities and reserve your resources for those opportunities that best fit what you are really good at.
3. Make 10X investments – Resist the tendency to spread your financial and human resources too broadly and thinly. Be willing to make a “big bet” to renew and reenergize your core.
4. Pursue the root cause – We frequently tend to observe symptoms of unacceptable performance and not dig deep enough to identify the root cause of the stall out from growth. Use the “five why’s” questioning process to drill down to the real cause of the problem.
5. Invest heavily in next-generation leadership – the “graying” of the management team in most agribusiness companies combined with historical underinvestment in mid-career managers have combined to result in a next-generation management vacuum in too many cases.
6. Invest preemptively in building new capabilities – at the same time as investing in next-generation leadership is required, investing more broadly in the capabilities and capacities of the current workforce is also critical. Differentiation and competitive advantage will increasingly come from soft assets, not the hard assets, and leadership and talent management will be essential to build these assets.
7. Focus on long-term goals and horizons – we all struggle with the immediacy syndrome – short-term pay-off goals and financial performance metrics, wanting quick results, investing in short-term projects that may not create long-term value. As growth slows down, the tendency is to double-down on projects/activities/investments that will give a quick pop to current earnings or market share. The founder’s mentality mindset recognizes that short-term survival is essential, but the focus is always on long-term value creation.
8. Become guardians of speed and agility – now the dichotomy – maintain and enhance the ability to respond quickly to changing conditions and the capability to be agile rather than bureaucratic in the decision process. All while focusing on long-term goals rather than short-term financial performance.
9. Share the burden of leadership across the organization – leadership can and should come from all levels of the organization; from the support staff, the sales force, the research lab, the manufacturing floor, the loading dock, the truck drivers- and not just from the C-suite.
I did enjoy this book and hope that you may also.
February 1, 2025
Good conclusions and anecdotes. I don’t think the ideas in here are particularly surprising or novel, but they are worthwhile nonetheless.
‘One manager we met during our visit memorably summed up the company's approach. "We create restaurant owners, not waiters," he said. "If you're a restaurant owner, and a new restaurant opens across the street serving the same food, how do you feel? You feel like someone is putting your livelihood at risk, threatening you, threatening your family. It's personal, because the restaurant is your dream. But if you are a waiter, and a new restaurant opens across the street, how do you feel? At best, indifferent. Actually, there's now competition for your services. Many companies inadvertently create waiters. We work tirelessly to create restaurant owners."’
‘One manager we met during our visit memorably summed up the company's approach. "We create restaurant owners, not waiters," he said. "If you're a restaurant owner, and a new restaurant opens across the street serving the same food, how do you feel? You feel like someone is putting your livelihood at risk, threatening you, threatening your family. It's personal, because the restaurant is your dream. But if you are a waiter, and a new restaurant opens across the street, how do you feel? At best, indifferent. Actually, there's now competition for your services. Many companies inadvertently create waiters. We work tirelessly to create restaurant owners."’
November 14, 2018
Surprisingly good book. Written by two consultants who are focusing on strategic management and growth. Most of the book is about obstacles that prevent companies from growing - authors named them a crisis of growth. I was expecting more of a founder-mindset book, however, it's not at all about that. It can be useful for founders and consultants working with them on strategic initiatives that enable growth of companies. It reminded me Jim Collins work however without the analysis part, which is a flaw of this book because Collins was much more direct and rigorous in distilling his practices.
Still worth reading and only 200 pages.
Still worth reading and only 200 pages.
May 30, 2024
Typical.
A book out of what should have been a 3 page article at most…
Interesting - if quite basic premise on Founder’s mentality which to be honest was nothing surprising or revealing in a way I did not expect.
A book out of what should have been a 3 page article at most…
Interesting - if quite basic premise on Founder’s mentality which to be honest was nothing surprising or revealing in a way I did not expect.
August 31, 2023
Juntos Work BC: A little of a dry read but realistically brought up a great conversation. Be the comeback story Fossil!
May 29, 2024
interesting listen on business - rallying the works on the front line to hold the same passion as the founder.
February 28, 2022
The Founders Mentality by Chris Zook and James Allen
⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌱Overview: Exploration of why some start up companies fail while others succeed, and their recipe for this success.
💼 Genre: Business | Leadership | Entrepreneurship | Management
👍Likes: Well written, end of chapter summaries, short and to the point, interesting examples, practical, well researched, lots of food for thought.
👎Dislikes: Found myself losing interest at times, challenging to stay fully focused, overkill with examples at times.
📘Format: Hard copy
🤓Recommend For: New business owners and entrepreneurs who are trying to grow their business successfully. Also great for business leaders, who are not necessarily in a start up but wish to make a positive impact on their team.
🪴 Key Concepts and favourite Quotes
🧠 The founders mentality consists of:
1. Insurgent mission
2. Frontline obsession
3. Owners mindset
📈 85 percent of executives perceive that the key barriers to sustained and profitable growth that they face are on the inside.
💭 “He had a reputation for clearing his desk of every file before leaving every day. Without a haystack, he felt, you can’t lose any needles.”
⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌱Overview: Exploration of why some start up companies fail while others succeed, and their recipe for this success.
💼 Genre: Business | Leadership | Entrepreneurship | Management
👍Likes: Well written, end of chapter summaries, short and to the point, interesting examples, practical, well researched, lots of food for thought.
👎Dislikes: Found myself losing interest at times, challenging to stay fully focused, overkill with examples at times.
📘Format: Hard copy
🤓Recommend For: New business owners and entrepreneurs who are trying to grow their business successfully. Also great for business leaders, who are not necessarily in a start up but wish to make a positive impact on their team.
🪴 Key Concepts and favourite Quotes
🧠 The founders mentality consists of:
1. Insurgent mission
2. Frontline obsession
3. Owners mindset
📈 85 percent of executives perceive that the key barriers to sustained and profitable growth that they face are on the inside.
💭 “He had a reputation for clearing his desk of every file before leaving every day. Without a haystack, he felt, you can’t lose any needles.”
May 11, 2020
:) leaving in one of the companies used of example I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book. Many examples are truly legible, but it worth to challenge that huge enterprise struggles a lot in their own founders mentality.
August 26, 2017
This book is a must-read for anyone involved in running a business. It applies to small, medium and large businesses alike and focuses on the inside rather than the outside of the company.
It is full of examples and insights on how to cross the many chasms companies face as they mature.
It is short, intense and well documented.
Highly recommended.
It is full of examples and insights on how to cross the many chasms companies face as they mature.
It is short, intense and well documented.
Highly recommended.
January 26, 2020
Great tips on how to strive for scale insurgency. Particularly for me, the most interesting part was the one that explored fast growth. Keep your eyes on your front line and always be client focused.
April 18, 2019
When I first heard about this book, I expected it to talk about how "The Founder's Mentality"can be a detriment to an organization as it matures...that organizations can have a difficult time transitioning from a "garage band" operation to something more substantial and sustainable.
That wasn't what this is about.
Instead, it talks about the value of the Founder's Mentality, and about how companies struggle when they lose that mentality. And about how companies have "returned to their roots."
It's a good book. As someone who works primarily in the church/non-profit world, I would have liked some wisdom about how this applies outside of a strictly business sense. Of course I know it does...but some examples, or some thinking from more of a 'leadership' perspective rather than a 'management' perspective would have strengthened the book.
That wasn't what this is about.
Instead, it talks about the value of the Founder's Mentality, and about how companies struggle when they lose that mentality. And about how companies have "returned to their roots."
It's a good book. As someone who works primarily in the church/non-profit world, I would have liked some wisdom about how this applies outside of a strictly business sense. Of course I know it does...but some examples, or some thinking from more of a 'leadership' perspective rather than a 'management' perspective would have strengthened the book.
December 16, 2017
Not deep enough, a lot of the times it’s just executive just-so stories: self-selecting cases where it’s not clear if it’s a case of correlation or causation. The advice on complexity reduction is not bad but this could be condensed to a HBR article.
May 27, 2017
Read this for work. 'Nuf said. Back to reading for fun!
July 11, 2018
This book was repetitive. Although it had some interesting insights into why companies collapse, this could have been covered in an article.
February 11, 2019
I didn't finish this book. It was very dry and not nearly as interesting as I'd hoped.
November 9, 2024
The Founder's Mentality: How to Overcome the Predictable Crises of Growth
Where does this book fit in the spectrum of areas of product discovery, development and distribution? As the book mentions it doesn't get into external aspects such as PESTEL(Political Economical Social Technological Environmental Legal) but gets into the internal organizational operational efficiency metrics. There are other books which go into detail about the external such as Innovators dilemma, Crossing Chasm etc.
The book talks about:
1. Owner's Mindset: Cash Focus, Bias for action, Aversion to Bureaucracy
2. Bold Mission: Insurgency, Limitless Horizon
3. Frontline Obsession: Relentless Experimentation, Frontline Empowerment, customer advocacy
The whole book is centered on the three crisis of growth namely Overload, Stall out and Free Fall and how to overcome them. The author concepts of Westward Winds and Southward winds. They can be much appreciated by looking at the graph introduced in the book. Author says Overload is caused by Westward winds and Stall Out is caused by Southward Winds. The winds here are basically factors for failure. Storms Causes Freefall of a company. After reading the book I personally feel Stall out is more dangerous than overload and Freefall is of course the more dangerous than stall out.
Causes of Overload-caused by Westward Winds:
1. The unscalable founder: 2 in 5 have listed this issue
2. Lost voice from front line
3. The erosion of accountability
4. Revenue grows faster than talent
Causes of Stall out-caused by Southward winds
1. The complexity doom- reduce complexity | Focus |
2. The curse of the matrix- no to energy vampires | allocate resources selectively
3. Fragmentation of the customer experience-Ownership
4. Death of the nobler mission-Companies die from indigestion rather than starvation
I personally feel this book and the innovators dilemma book by Clayton are two sides of the same coin, one talks about external factors(Technological Factors) in the PESTEL framework and the other book talks about the internal factors that a company must face to have sustained growth.
Where does this book fit in the spectrum of areas of product discovery, development and distribution? As the book mentions it doesn't get into external aspects such as PESTEL(Political Economical Social Technological Environmental Legal) but gets into the internal organizational operational efficiency metrics. There are other books which go into detail about the external such as Innovators dilemma, Crossing Chasm etc.
The book talks about:
1. Owner's Mindset: Cash Focus, Bias for action, Aversion to Bureaucracy
2. Bold Mission: Insurgency, Limitless Horizon
3. Frontline Obsession: Relentless Experimentation, Frontline Empowerment, customer advocacy
The whole book is centered on the three crisis of growth namely Overload, Stall out and Free Fall and how to overcome them. The author concepts of Westward Winds and Southward winds. They can be much appreciated by looking at the graph introduced in the book. Author says Overload is caused by Westward winds and Stall Out is caused by Southward Winds. The winds here are basically factors for failure. Storms Causes Freefall of a company. After reading the book I personally feel Stall out is more dangerous than overload and Freefall is of course the more dangerous than stall out.
Causes of Overload-caused by Westward Winds:
1. The unscalable founder: 2 in 5 have listed this issue
2. Lost voice from front line
3. The erosion of accountability
4. Revenue grows faster than talent
Causes of Stall out-caused by Southward winds
1. The complexity doom- reduce complexity | Focus |
2. The curse of the matrix- no to energy vampires | allocate resources selectively
3. Fragmentation of the customer experience-Ownership
4. Death of the nobler mission-Companies die from indigestion rather than starvation
I personally feel this book and the innovators dilemma book by Clayton are two sides of the same coin, one talks about external factors(Technological Factors) in the PESTEL framework and the other book talks about the internal factors that a company must face to have sustained growth.
March 8, 2020
Probably not completely trash but watch this chapter title:
5 How to save a company from a dying business.
Why didn't all the failing companies use your strategy to save themselves, because they didn't read your book and your little tips like "fight bureaucracy" and "fire a layer"?
Below is a great review for many business books I read lately:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Similarly to "All models are wrong; some models are useful", my view on business books is that some of them are indeed useful. Usefulness of business books comes either from direct applicability to one's current situation, or a general quality of being inspiring. I didn't find this book either inspiring or applicable, but first let me mention positives.
This is a stereotypical business book that meets almost all criteria for this category:
1) A book that could be summarized as an HBR article - check
2) A two-by-two matrix - check
3) A questionnaire to determine one's company place on the matrix - check
4) A supplemental website where one can find more information on authors' consultancy practice - check
5) Numerous stories of CEOs saving companies from perils of insolvency or irrelevancy against all the odds - check
6) New business jargon - check
7) Absence of any data to account for "halo effect" - check and check
In summary, the book is dry and it doesn't offer anything substantively new to stand out in this competitive and repetitive category of books.
5 How to save a company from a dying business.
Why didn't all the failing companies use your strategy to save themselves, because they didn't read your book and your little tips like "fight bureaucracy" and "fire a layer"?
Below is a great review for many business books I read lately:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Similarly to "All models are wrong; some models are useful", my view on business books is that some of them are indeed useful. Usefulness of business books comes either from direct applicability to one's current situation, or a general quality of being inspiring. I didn't find this book either inspiring or applicable, but first let me mention positives.
This is a stereotypical business book that meets almost all criteria for this category:
1) A book that could be summarized as an HBR article - check
2) A two-by-two matrix - check
3) A questionnaire to determine one's company place on the matrix - check
4) A supplemental website where one can find more information on authors' consultancy practice - check
5) Numerous stories of CEOs saving companies from perils of insolvency or irrelevancy against all the odds - check
6) New business jargon - check
7) Absence of any data to account for "halo effect" - check and check
In summary, the book is dry and it doesn't offer anything substantively new to stand out in this competitive and repetitive category of books.
April 12, 2019
The "Founders Mentality" has three facets that when held onto can help fuel growth and prevent the three predictable crisis of growth.
The first is an"insurgent mission" which is a company that wages war on the incumbent companies on behalf of the underserved customer. The founder's mentality breaks into the scene recognizing the underserved customer and goes after serving them better their most important priority and doing whatever it takes to do it. The second is a "frontline obsession" an unmitigated focus on front-line employees and customers at all levels of an organization. The third is an "owners mindset" where everyone at every level feels like owners of the company doing whatever it takes to accomplish its insurgent mission.
As I read this book as a pastor and listened to the descriptions of various companies in the three crisis of growth: "overload," "stall out," and "free fall," I could change the words used to apply to the church and I could picture real examples of churches facing each challenge. With work, this book can be translated well to the church setting and lessons can be gleaned.
The one downside is that as interesting as the corporation stories were, they could get repetitive in the lessons that they pointed made. Otherwise, it's a great book.
The first is an"insurgent mission" which is a company that wages war on the incumbent companies on behalf of the underserved customer. The founder's mentality breaks into the scene recognizing the underserved customer and goes after serving them better their most important priority and doing whatever it takes to do it. The second is a "frontline obsession" an unmitigated focus on front-line employees and customers at all levels of an organization. The third is an "owners mindset" where everyone at every level feels like owners of the company doing whatever it takes to accomplish its insurgent mission.
As I read this book as a pastor and listened to the descriptions of various companies in the three crisis of growth: "overload," "stall out," and "free fall," I could change the words used to apply to the church and I could picture real examples of churches facing each challenge. With work, this book can be translated well to the church setting and lessons can be gleaned.
The one downside is that as interesting as the corporation stories were, they could get repetitive in the lessons that they pointed made. Otherwise, it's a great book.
December 29, 2024
This book talks about dealing with growth and not losing sight of your core priciples and what you can do to get back if you do. This is mainly directed at very large organizations with hundreds if not thousands of employees but I believe the principles can apply to any sized business. Nearly every business they used as examples are publicly traded or were at some point.
As you grow it’s easy to get bogged down with bureaucracy, complex systems and a variety of other choke-points. It’s easy to lose sight of the core business functions, front line focus and the mission.
A lot of the companies referenced in the book experienced rapid growth and were disruptive newcomers in their fields and either revoltionuized their industries or paved the way and formed new ones.
As they grew they lost the speed and agility that got them to where they were and rapidly declined. Some were able to turn it around and get back to being successful. Others were not.
It discusses the importance of staying focused on what made the company successful in the first place and not stalling out. Maintaining the ability to quickly react to changing business environments and pivoting when needed are essential.
While the book wasn’t directed at me or a company of our size, I found that it sparked a lot of good trains of thought and I definitely had some good takeaways from it.
As you grow it’s easy to get bogged down with bureaucracy, complex systems and a variety of other choke-points. It’s easy to lose sight of the core business functions, front line focus and the mission.
A lot of the companies referenced in the book experienced rapid growth and were disruptive newcomers in their fields and either revoltionuized their industries or paved the way and formed new ones.
As they grew they lost the speed and agility that got them to where they were and rapidly declined. Some were able to turn it around and get back to being successful. Others were not.
It discusses the importance of staying focused on what made the company successful in the first place and not stalling out. Maintaining the ability to quickly react to changing business environments and pivoting when needed are essential.
While the book wasn’t directed at me or a company of our size, I found that it sparked a lot of good trains of thought and I definitely had some good takeaways from it.
April 3, 2025
I’d caution any CEO against taking The Founder’s Mentality and making it the bible of their business. While the book claims to address the “predictable crises of growth,” it often feels more like a blueprint for offloading executive accountability onto employees.
Sure, the idea of encouraging initiative and ownership can be empowering in theory - but in practice, this book perpetuates a dangerous hustle culture that expects workers to constantly go above and beyond their role… without extra pay, support, or even recognition.
Need a data scientist but only hired a marketing manager? No worries - this book would have you believe they should just spend their dog-walking break learning SQL. The message is clear: if your business is struggling, it’s your employees who aren’t thinking like “founders.”
But here’s the thing - not everyone is paid like a founder. Not everyone has equity, or decision-making power. And when problems are systemic, they should be solved at the system level — by leadership, not by piling on invisible labor at the bottom.
If you’re a CEO looking for a self-help book that lets you dodge your own responsibility while demanding unpaid upskilling from your team - congratulations, you’ve found it. For the rest of us? Pass.
Sure, the idea of encouraging initiative and ownership can be empowering in theory - but in practice, this book perpetuates a dangerous hustle culture that expects workers to constantly go above and beyond their role… without extra pay, support, or even recognition.
Need a data scientist but only hired a marketing manager? No worries - this book would have you believe they should just spend their dog-walking break learning SQL. The message is clear: if your business is struggling, it’s your employees who aren’t thinking like “founders.”
But here’s the thing - not everyone is paid like a founder. Not everyone has equity, or decision-making power. And when problems are systemic, they should be solved at the system level — by leadership, not by piling on invisible labor at the bottom.
If you’re a CEO looking for a self-help book that lets you dodge your own responsibility while demanding unpaid upskilling from your team - congratulations, you’ve found it. For the rest of us? Pass.
August 6, 2025
I swear if another book references Home Depot after reading an entire book on it, I'm gonna stop and just delete it. Well, I'm a solo entrepreneur and I can't not do founder's mentality. And whenever I own public company stock, I have an owner mentality. And that's about it. I don't know why this book would be useful for me unless I was a boss or had a company to run. This is like a corporate story without a specific company but multiple ones primed as examples. How they shaped, I guess, the company culture and how they, as the title says, overcame their problems that hindered growth. It's really hard if not impossible to translate all this knowledge to solo endeavors. And since I don't plan on building an empire I just don't know how to relate to this. And even if you know how a company is supposed to make the next step at its inflection point or something, it's not like you can influence public companies. You could pound the table like, hey, you're doing this wrong, but you're not going to elicit change. So it would only frustrate you. And, you know, judging management quality before investing or after you end up with a stock position, it's really hard. This book could help in theory, but I think it's just really tailored to a different and very specific audience of larger business owners.
May 25, 2023
Like most good business books this one checks the key boxes:
(a) Has a few core takeaways that we need to remember even if we forget the rest of the details
(b) Engaging read with lots of accessible examples from real world business examples, many of which most of us have either experienced first hand or likely read about in some other context
(c) The core concepts are intuitive
Founder's Mentality talks about having a sense of urgency with a bold, insurgent mission; Being obsessed with the end customers and the frontline employees and their feedback (attention to detail); and finally treat a business, even if you're an employee, as if you own it. And if you're the founder then look out for those employees and promote and reward them.
The book also outlines the various stages of decline, including free-fall, and how it has been proven that most companies decline due to internal rather than external reasons.
At a little over 200 pages, a fast, fun read with a few ideas that will likely resonate with most of us.
(a) Has a few core takeaways that we need to remember even if we forget the rest of the details
(b) Engaging read with lots of accessible examples from real world business examples, many of which most of us have either experienced first hand or likely read about in some other context
(c) The core concepts are intuitive
Founder's Mentality talks about having a sense of urgency with a bold, insurgent mission; Being obsessed with the end customers and the frontline employees and their feedback (attention to detail); and finally treat a business, even if you're an employee, as if you own it. And if you're the founder then look out for those employees and promote and reward them.
The book also outlines the various stages of decline, including free-fall, and how it has been proven that most companies decline due to internal rather than external reasons.
At a little over 200 pages, a fast, fun read with a few ideas that will likely resonate with most of us.
September 20, 2019
A must read for all business professionals. It is intended for everyone in the organization cause we are all leaders and influence ourselves and those around us. Also I found it a very easy read. Easy to follow and interesting.
This books highlights the fact that as companies grow in size to gain benefits of scale and scope, they lose the benefits of founders mentality and become mired in complexity. This is known as the growth paradox. In this book the authors share their findings from years of research and how companies that keep their founders mentality outperform their competitors in spades. Also the authors explain what exactly entails founders mentality and how to get it back if you have lost it. Additionally they share warning signs for companies to watch out for as they grow.
This books highlights the fact that as companies grow in size to gain benefits of scale and scope, they lose the benefits of founders mentality and become mired in complexity. This is known as the growth paradox. In this book the authors share their findings from years of research and how companies that keep their founders mentality outperform their competitors in spades. Also the authors explain what exactly entails founders mentality and how to get it back if you have lost it. Additionally they share warning signs for companies to watch out for as they grow.
May 26, 2024
Det var faktisk en rigtig interesant bog. Jeg er generelt gået lidt død i de der strategi-business-CBS-bøger, men denne havde en god præmis og en simpel grundpointe: du skal dyrke ‘intraprenører’ og de talenter som har ‘founders mentality’. Det er en mentalitet, som jeg har set hos få i mit arbejdsliv, desværre. Dem der går den ekstra mil, tænker ud af boksen, er innovative, tager initiativ, får ting fikset hurtigt, investerer i ledere, er langsigtede.
De to Co-Strategy-leads fra Bain, der har skrevet bogen, formår at formidle det akkompagneret af vilde case-studier fra Apple, Lego, Wal-Mart, GE osv.
Hele bogen er bygget op om en simpel 2x2-matrice, hvor målet er at være en ‘scaled insurgent’, altså en som laver oprør og udfordrer status quo.
De to Co-Strategy-leads fra Bain, der har skrevet bogen, formår at formidle det akkompagneret af vilde case-studier fra Apple, Lego, Wal-Mart, GE osv.
Hele bogen er bygget op om en simpel 2x2-matrice, hvor målet er at være en ‘scaled insurgent’, altså en som laver oprør og udfordrer status quo.
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