Dan Isenberg podcast - on contrarian entrepreneurs - a podcast by John Caddell

Dan Isenberg is the executive director of the Babson Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Project and the author of the great new book "Worthless, Impossible and Stupid: How Contrarian Entrepreneurs Create and Capture Extraordinary Value," a very valuable book on the subject. We had a wide-ranging conversation on failure, mistakes, lean startups and whether entrepreneurs need to try to get very big. Enjoy!Access the podcast here (30 minutes).

Summary:1:15 What "Worthless, Impossible and Stupid" is about
3:10 On the emerging "Failure Culture"7:30 The fine line between success and failure in new ventures
8:20 Is the first mover advantage really an advantage?9:25 Do entrepreneurs have to be innovators to succeed?
10:00 Dan's failed venture11:30 Lessons from the failure - the sixth sense of business danger; the speed of failure; reading the macro situation; the "Dersu Uzala" story
13:33 Is there a scarcity of capital for entrepreneurs?17:00 On the Lean Startup movement; not so novel - "that's the way our grandparents did business"; "a lot of really good ventures will require a lot of capital"
18:55 Is a flower-shop owner really an entrepreneur? "There's not a continuum between self-employment and entrepreneurship."22:30 Entrepreneurs as job-creators - and public policy (please be patient with the interviewer's 90 -90!- second question. He got carried away.)
28:05 A bit more on the book - great entrepreneur stories without even one about Steve Jobs

Further episodes of The Mistake Bank Podcast

Further podcasts by John Caddell

Website of John Caddell