When we look back on the years of work that went into The Founder’s Mentality we are struck by the large number of amazing people who devoted their time, their expertise, and their insights to this project. As authors we are humbled and grateful.
Well over a hundred executives, most of them busy CEOs and founders of companies, devoted countless hours sharing with us their stories, the challenges they faced along the way, and the best techniques they used to surmount those challenges and create enduring companies. Their stories and insights from the front lines of business are at the core of this book. We completed this project with the highest level of respect for what such business leaders, and especially founders, have accomplished during their lives, and for the skill and willpower that enabled their successes.
Our partners at Bain & Company were constantly supportive of our effort and responded generously and quickly to our requests for references, case examples, critiques, and ideas. During the course of writing The Founder’s Mentality, we delivered literally hundreds of workshops, talks, and presentations to the clients of our partners, allowing us to apply our ideas at the coal face of business as well as to constantly learn and pressure-test improvements. We feel incredibly lucky to have worked with such a generous and capable group of people willing to share so selflessly. We would especially like to thank Nicolas Bloch, Stefano Bridelli, Innocent Dutiro, François Faelli, Toshi Hiura, Dunigan O’Keeffe, Charles Ormiston, Raj Pherwani, and Steve Schaubert. Steve suffered an untimely death just months before the completion of this book. He remains in our memories and at the top of the list of those to whom we are most grateful for his sage advice on our books as well as for the way in which he role modeled the founder’s mentality.
Bain & Company allowed us to work with some truly all-star consultants and analysts to help us figure out everything from the stall-out rates of companies to the odds of sustaining profitable growth. We would especially like to thank the leaders of these research efforts: Sonal Pruthi, Bhavya Nand Kishore, Anouk Piening, Alice Leonard, Lucy Cummings, Jennifer Kim, and Ashleigh Sullivan. You are the best of the brightest. Ralph D’Angelo was our go-to library whiz for the toughest searches. Brenda Davis, Chris’s assistant of over twenty years, kept us organized and provided positive karma all along the way.
We thank editorial director Tim Sullivan, senior editor Melinda Merino, and the remarkable team they assembled at Harvard Business Review Press, from cover design to technical editing and production. Thank you for taking on this project and making it one of Harvard’s featured books of this year.
Rafe Sagalyn, our agent, went above and beyond, suggesting some changes in the organization of the book and finding an experienced editor, Toby Lester, to sharpen our prose. Toby’s keystrokes are evident on nearly every page. Thank you, Toby.
The Bain & Company marketing team, led by Wendy Miller and Paul Judge, was tireless in helping us with issues from writing style to editorial issues and even the use of track change software (which constantly stymied us), yet we never exceeded the amazing limits of their patience and knowledge. One of the real stars of the show was Maggie Locher, who was the “keeper of the master” at critical times in the voyage as well as the person who undertook the detailed process of fact-checking. If anything slipped through, it is our fault, but the level of attention and precision Maggie brought to the task was Herculean.
Finally, we offer our deepest thanks to Donna Robinson and Kathy Allen, our understanding wives, for putting up with endless family schedule disruptions and distracted partners while unfailingly offering support, sage advice, and positive energy, all of which we needed in abundance.