In Part 2 of our two-part series featuring Daymond John, Daymond shows how aligning your mission with partners builds trust that can take your scale to a new level.
How do you create authentic partnerships to build scale? In Part 1 of our two-part series featuring Daymond John, founder of FUBU and one of the original “sharks” on ABC’s Shark Tank, Daymond shares lessons from FUBU’s earliest days in Queens, where he partnered with bouncers, bodegas, his neighbor LL Cool J, and his earliest collaborator and investor (his mom) to turn a great idea into a billion-dollar urbanwear brand. Coming in Part 2: Transcending the transactional with Shark Tank, the Kardashians, and more.
For some entrepreneurs, risk is just part of the game. But for the reluctant entrepreneur, whose endeavors come as a response to a need they’ve identified, risk can feel more like a necessary evil. That’s why you need to learn to harness risk. Stacey Abrams, and her frequent business partner Lara Hodgson, share stories of how harnessing and balancing risk can be the key to your success.
Throughout her career, Natalie Massenet has proved her ability to spot – and act on – a trend. Natalie and Reid share tactics about how to deliver the future to consumers, manage pushback, and navigate uncharted territory.
Too often, companies only focus on the type of scale that’s visible: massive campuses, thousands of workers, offices around the globe. But as Land O’Lakes proves, there are less conspicuous ways to scale – ways that supply your business with structural integrity. This is something CEO Beth Ford knows well.
Reid Hoffman and Masters of Scale executive producer June Cohen gather five of their favorite guests – Brian Chesky, Tyra Banks, Angela Ahrendts, Sallie Krawcheck, and Franklin Leonard — for a raw, honest, open dialogue filled with nonstop insights.
Jessica Alba’s approach in founding and building The Honest Company revolves around three letters: IRL, a useful acronym for “In Real Life.” This phrase acts as a reminder for the company to shine the spotlight onto their customer’s real needs – not only to understand them, but to address them as well.
Collaboration drives performance in the modern economy. Yet the uncertainty and dislocation of our pandemic experience has unsettled workplace expectations and cultures. Managing a team today requires a new mindfulness about physical and mental health, what motivates performance, and how to build creativity in remote, hybrid, and fluid conditions. In this special episode, we share five moves that are essential to building a successful team spirit right now.
Unconventional ideas can fuel scale dreams — but they also attract naysayers. When Katia Beauchamp, co-founder and CEO of Birchbox, introduced her idea of subscription beauty boxes, she knew this novel business model went against beauty-industry norms — and was hard for some tech-focused investors to connect with. To woo investors, suppliers and customers, Katia learned to describe her industry-flipping idea in conventional terms, connecting on common ground.
Creating a prototype isn’t the same as leading a team of thousands. You need to keep your mission constant, but your tactics fluid as you scale. This is the challenge President Barack Obama faced after winning the 2008 election. In the second part of interview, we dive into how he grappled with the Great Recession, the Affordable Care Act, and the disastrous rollout of healthcare.gov. Through it all, he learned to let first principles guide the way, even as he and his staff adapted to new realities and changing rules.
To win at scale, you need more than great players – you need a team of great coaches. Alex Rodriguez learned this in baseball, and now as an investor at A-Rod Corp., where his mentor is none other than Warren Buffet. Alex and Reid, with Katia Beauchamp of Birchbox and HBS professor Mihir Desai, take questions from the HBS class of ’21.
From Pixar to Marvel to Lucasfilm, Disney’s Bob Iger defied expectations, acquiring world-renowned brands and meshing them seamlessly with the House of Mouse. In Part 2 of our epic conversation with Iger – Disney’s executive chair and former CEO – we delve into the next phase of the process, how he helped build a diverse, sustainable ecosystem for Disney companies in the China market, and how all the lessons learned played out in the massive acquisition of 20th Century Fox.