Founders, Keepers - by Richard Hagberg & Tien Tzuo (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Based on decades of empirical research and data, Founders, Keepers gives founders a practical roadmap for navigating the inevitable challenges that come with startup growth.It's a brutal paradox-the same founder attributes required to put a startup in motion will invariably blow it up. The difference between success and failure lies in the personal journey that every founder must pursue to avoid their own worst impulses. Steeped in nearly forty years of research in leadership psychology, Founders, Keepers begins with the same personality assessment Rich Hagberg, a psychologist and executive management coach, gives his clients. Hagberg and Tien Tzuo, founder and CEO of Zuora, help founders build a Swiss Army knife of practical tools that will give them a much better chance of making it to the next level of success. A guide for founders, investors, and academics alike, the result of a decade-long collaboration between a successful CEO and Silicon Valley's "CEO Whisperer" offers readers insights into: The differentiators between successful and unsuccessful founders The three pillars of leadership that every founder needs to be successful The essential skills founders need to master to be successful over the long haul An examination of the common personality traits that lead founders to make fatally flawed decisions What makes founders tick, including the default tendencies and leadership styles that often undermine their success How founders frustrate their investors, partners and employees Founders may not be able to account for all the complexities of their companies, but they can account for themselves. It's a difficult but unavoidable truth: to grow your startup, you have to grow as a person. And that's where Founders, Keepers comes in"--

Book Synopsis

Based on decades of empirical research and data, Founders, Keepers gives founders a practical roadmap for navigating the inevitable challenges that come with startup growth.

Every founder is a time bomb waiting to explode. Why? Because the same personal attributes a founder needs to launch a startup will invariably blow it up. Successful founders learn how to defuse their worst impulses and build durable companies. But most don't.

For founders, investors, and academics alike, Founders, Keepers is the distillation of a lengthy collaboration between Rich Hagberg, Silicon Valley's "CEO Whisperer," and his client Tien Tzuo, founder and CEO of Zuora. Steeped in nearly 40 years of research in leadership psychology, it delivers a Swiss Army knife of mental models and practical tools that will give founders a much better chance of making it to the next level of success.

This sharp, lively guide gives readers insights into:

• The three pillars of leadership every founder needs to be successful
• How certain personality traits can lead to fatally flawed decisions
• Common blind spots, including the default tendencies and leadership styles that often undermine success
• The key factors that differentiate successful and unsuccessful founders
• Why founders often frustrate their investors, partners, and employees--and what to do instead

It's a difficult but unavoidable truth: in order to grow a startup, you have to grow as a person. Founders may be unable to account for all the complexities entailed in scaling a company, but they can learn how to account for themselves. Founders, Keepers offers the way forward.

Review Quotes

"This master class in how to build a startup would have helped me avoid some of my biggest professional mistakes--I just wish it had come out years ago!"

--Jonathan Seelig, Cofounder, Akamai

"Founders, Keepers is the mirror every founder needs. It provides the frameworks that we as leaders need to grow with our companies. It's nice to find a book that takes the theoretical and makes it generally applicable to real life."

--Matt Tait, Cofounder and CEO, Decimal

"Rich and Tien write with the clarity of having worked with some of the best founders. They brilliantly capture the internal struggles and strengths of founders and show the path to success."

--Mårten Mickos, former CEO, MySQL and HackerOne

"Founders, Keepers shows just how hard it is to be a founder and do the most insane thing imaginable--create something out of nothing. Calling on 40 years of research and unique wisdom and full of practical and actionable solutions, this book is required reading for founders who want to take their companies and themselves to the next level."

--Maynard Webb, Founder, Webb Investment Network; Director, Salesforce and Visa

"Founders, Keepers helped me to understand my own leadership style, to have the humility to admit where I fell short, and to learn and adapt as quickly as my startup grew. From a naive visionary to a manager of relationships and execution--nine years into my startup, I'm still here."

--Richard Mabey, Cofounder and CEO, Juro

About the Author

Rich Hagberg, Ph.D., often referred to as "Silicon Valley's CEO Whisperer," is a trained psychologist who has spent the last 40 years of his career as an executive management coach for over 6,000 executives. Since 2009 he has worked with companies like Tinder, Twitter, Dropbox, MixPanel, Zendesk, Quora, Asana, Pinterest, Salesforce, Munchery, Reddit, Gusto, Cruise, Tinder, Optimizely, Instacart, Patreon, Nerdwallet, and Super Evil Megacorp (it's a gaming company). Dr. Hagberg is often quoted in the business and general media and has been featured in publications such as Fortune, Forbes, BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal, Inc., Entrepreneur, The Information, Business Insider and CNN.

Tien Tzuo, Founder and CEO of Zuora, evangelized the shift to subscription and service-based business models, coining the phrase "Subscription Economy." In an effort to empower this new economy, Tien created what became an award-winning monetization suite capable of powering any recurring revenue model. Before Zuora, Tien was one of the "original forces" at Salesforce, joining as employee number 11. In his 9 years at Salesforce, he built its original billing system, later serving as Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Strategy Officer. Tien is also the author of the USA Today, LA Times and Amazon best-selling book, Subscribed, which has sold over 100,000 copies in 14 languages around the world. He holds a BS in electrical engineering from Cornell and an MBA from Stanford's Graduate School of Business. Tien was born in Taiwan and raised in Brooklyn, New York.