His advice is as applicable to entrepreneurs as it is to managers looking to shake up their departments.” — Most Notable Books List of 2013, Business Digest
“… Isenberg excels at breaking down the many elements that lead to entrepreneurial success.” — BARRONS
“a thought-provoking book about the contrary nature of successful entrepreneurs.” — Financial Times
“Isenberg effectively captures the varied landscape of new and innovative work, and inspiring stories and coverage of many different kinds of businesses fully support his premise.” — Publishers Weekly
“There is a guy called Daniel Isenberg — I don’t really know him but he is a big deal and writes and talks a fair bit about entrepreneurship. He’s written a book that I feel touches on some interesting points about entrepreneurship. Brad Feld, co-founder of Techstars, likes it so there must be something to it.” — Michelle Atagana, VentureBurn.com
“… a fascinating book… it will challenge your assumptions about what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur and provide valuable insights into why and how those who are successful made it work. If you've ever wondered what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur, you'll want to read Worthless, Impossible, and Stupid: How Contrarian Entrepreneurs Create and Capture Extraordinary Value, by Daniel Isenberg.” — Jeanne Destro, USA Today
“… there is an abundance of great nuggets of knowledge in this book as well as frank confessions about how hard it usually is to create truly great companies. That kind of intelligence is not worthless, impossible or stupid.” — The Financial Times
“provocative, insightful, inspiring, and fun to read.” — Choice magazine
“… presents a part motivational and part self-help guide for aspiring entrepreneurs.” — Book News
“In ‘Worthless...’ Daniel Isenberg shatters the following two misconceptions: 1. The myth of the stroke of genius: most value creation is produced at the level of what Isenberg calls “minnovation”: small and unexpected twists on existing ideas, business models or products and services. 2. The myth of the expert: experts are not always the best positioned to be innovative. A novice’s fresh perspective can help to overcome barriers and discover opportunities that experts may be blind to.” — Business Digest
ADVANCE PRAISE for Worthless, Impossible, and Stupid:
Brad Feld, Managing Director, Foundry Group; cofounder, TechStars; and author, Startup Communities: Building an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem in Your City—
“Worthless, Impossible, and Stupid is a thought-provoking book for anyone interested in understanding the deeply contrarian nature of many entrepreneurs. It challenges the status quo definitions of entrepreneurship with substantive examples from all over the world. A must-read for building start-up communities.”
Jonathan Ortmans, President, Global Entrepreneurship Week, and Senior Fellow, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation—
“Daniel Isenberg’s bottom-up insights are a must-read for policymakers around the world racing to build smarter environments for starting and scaling firms.”
Esther Dyson, Chairman, EDventure Holdings—
“Worthless, Impossible, and Stupid confounds the stereotypes. The book vividly illustrates that entrepreneurs don’t all look like Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg or Sergey Brin; they don’t all live in Silicon Valley. And most important, they do more than create start-ups that make novel products or solve problems; they build companies of lasting value.”
Jim McCann, founder and CEO, 1-800-Flowers.com and Celebrations.com—
“Daniel Isenberg manages to turn the words ‘worthless, impossible, and stupid’ into the highest form of praise by getting inside the minds of real-life entrepreneurs to explain how counterintuitive thinking (and a sometimes inexplicable indifference to failure) have helped create and often revolutionize global business.”
Yossi Vardi, serial internet entrepreneur—
“Daniel Isenberg’s book sheds a whole new light on the nature of entrepreneurship, of entrepreneurs, and of business opportunity more broadly. Original, thought-provoking, and fun to read, it blows up a lot of truisms about this important topic.”
Linda Rottenberg, cofounder and CEO, Endeavor Global—
“Calling all contrarians: If you’ve taken great risks, confronted skeptics and setbacks, and unleashed extraordinary value, you’ll recognize yourself in this important new book by Daniel Isenberg. Worthless, Impossible, and Stupid perfectly captures the ups and downs of the entrepreneurial path, felling a great many myths along the way.”
Calestous Juma, professor, Harvard Kennedy School; author, The New Harvest: Agricultural Innovation in Africa—
“This book is a real threat to conventional theories on business development. Its lessons apply in many other fields of human endeavor. Anyone interested in changing the world for the better should read it.”
Grégoire Sentilhes, CEO, NextStage; cofounder, G20 Young Entrepreneur Alliance—
“Like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, François Pinault, Diego Della Valle, and so many other great entrepreneurs, Daniel Isenberg is a contrarian and provocative thinker. Worthless, Impossible, and Stupid accurately demonstrates why being an outstanding entrepreneur is not about age, expertise, or reason; it is about vision, courage, and mind-set.”
Akin Öngör, former CEO, Garanti Bank—
“In this provocative book, Daniel Isenberg shatters stereotypes and clarifies the often misunderstood concept of entrepreneurship. His inspiring real-life examples prove that true value is often found where many can only see something that seems worthless, impossible, or stupid.”
Sir Ronald Cohen, cofounder and former Chairman, Apax Partners—
“Valuable, practical, and insightful, Daniel Isenberg’s new book is a very helpful and illustrative guide to the entrepreneurial journey.”
Maria Pinelli, Global Vice Chair of Strategic Growth Markets, Ernst & Young—
“Entrepreneurship is so important for a healthy economy: It creates jobs, supports communities, and builds a better working world. Worthless, Impossible, and Stupid provides a sophisticated and provocative narrative on this crucial topic.”
Nick Lazaris, former CEO, Keurig—
“Entrepreneurs take note. Daniel Isenberg makes his contrarian point clear in this provocative book: Entrepreneurs need to be as innovative in finding ways to capture value as they are in creating it. This will be good for them individually and for the society that benefits from entrepreneurialism.”
Mikko Kosonen, President, The Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra—
“Daniel Isenberg brings us back to the roots of entrepreneurship: It’s all about identifying, creating, and capturing value, in areas not seen by others and that may seem worthless, impossible, and stupid. But there are real rewards for the hard-headed entrepreneur—and for the rest of us!”
