Episode 21 – John Mullins – the entrepreneurial mindset and breaking the rules

In this episode of Doing the Opposite: Business Disruptors, Jeff Dewing speaks to John Mullins, Associate Professor of Management Practice in Marketing and Entrepreneurship at London Business School.

John shares much of his past experience in business, including the story of a shop he ran that sold fresh pasta. He reflects on the emotional impact of the failure of that business and the factors that led to its demise.

Later John pivoted into teaching and uses the lessons he learnt in business to inform his students and shares the knowledge he has acquired. John is now an award-winning teacher and scholar and one of the world’s foremost thought leaders in entrepreneurship,

Jeff and John discuss the merits of peer learning groups for entrepreneurs. You can not underestimate the value in a business coach, or sharing ideas with other like-minded individuals.

Book’s published

The New Business Road Test: What Entrepreneurs and Investors Should Do Before Launching a Lean Start-up (now in its 5th edition, FT Publishing 2017), has become the definitive work on the assessment and shaping of entrepreneurial opportunities and is widely used by investors and entrepreneurs and in university courses worldwide.
John’s second book the critically acclaimed Getting to Plan B: Breaking Through to a Better Business Model (Boston: Harvard Business Press 2009), co-authored with Randy Komisar, a partner at the esteemed venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, was included in “Best Books of 2009” by Business Week and INC Magazine.
John’s newest book, The Customer-Funded Business: Start, Finance or Grow Your Business with Your Customers’ Cash, (Jersey City, Wiley 2014), was named one of five “not-to-be-missed books” for 2014 by Fortune magazine. It challenges the widely held assumption that among an entrepreneur’s first and most important tasks is that of raising investment capital. Its materials provide the foundation for his MOOC on Coursera.org, How to Finance and Grow Your Startup – Without VC., with more than 70,000 participants enrolled to date.

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