Wharton Entrepreneurship Book 1

Author: John Lasko
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-10-01
Features: Recommended by Business Week, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, and The Boston Globe! The designated work for cultivating entrepreneurial spirit in MBA programs at top business schools worldwide, including Wharton and Harvard! Entrepreneurship is not about boringly acknowledging that "in a constantly changing world, progress is the only guarantee of victory," nor is it about "we should have ideals, ambitions, pursuits, and goals." Instead, it is an inner, intrinsic, irrepressible, and even primal driving force. It is this driving force that made Sam Walton, the former CEO of Walmart, discuss sales data with a store manager who happened to visit him on the last days of his life; it is this driving force that made Ford bet its future on daringly pursuing the goal of "making cars accessible to the masses"; and it is this driving force that propelled Motorola from repairing battery chargers and producing car radios to manufacturing televisions, microprocessors, mobile communication devices, and satellites capable of orbiting the Earth.
This book tells an American-style entrepreneurial story. In the spring of 1999, two Wharton MBA graduates—John Lasko and Keller Harrison—rejected offers from many Fortune 500 companies and embarked on a solo entrepreneurial journey. Despite relying on only a vague idea and a few credit cards with limited balances at first, they successfully launched their flagship product—the Golf Mouse—with unwavering courage and a spirit of innovation. Along the way, they experienced both triumph and frustration, grandeur and grumbling, but most importantly, the two young men truly tasted the sweet and sour of entrepreneurship.
The material for this book comes from the diaries they wrote during their entrepreneurial journey—endless cold calls, repeated failures in finding distributors, and the anxiety-inducing typhoon that nearly derailed them. Initially, they only shared these writings with friends and family to let them know what they were doing. But soon, more and more people became interested, and many business school professors even designated their business diaries as required reading for their students, including the world-renowned Harvard Business School and their alma mater, Wharton. So, they decided to compile these diaries into a book.
Soon after its publication, the book climbed to the top of the best-selling business list in the United States and has been a long-term bestseller, remaining popular to this day.