William Green's Key Ideas from The Self-Made Billionaire Effect
by John Sviokla, Mitch Cohen

The fine line between too risky and not promising enough is hard to strike, but billionaires obviously excel at it. What allows them to only take the exact risks they need to take, and not more?

It’s not that billionaires take more risks than the average entrepreneur – they roughly take the same amount of them. What helps them take better risks is their relative view of it.

 Michael Bloomberg worked as an investment banker and got fired shortly after getting a promotion because his bank was acquired.

Instead of taking another investment bank job, he used his $10 million severance package to then start his own company, providing market research data to big companies, which ballooned to over 15,000 people over the years.

Being producers, billionaires must, however, partner with performers, in order to succeed.

Imagine Steve Jobs without Steve Wozniak. You’d have an incredibly creative and visionary human being, with charming people skills, who couldn’t build a single computer.

Likewise, Steve Wozniak’s incredible manufacturing and electrical engineering skills would have amounted to nothing more than a few fun gadgets and some pocket money, had he not teamed up with Steve to bring the Apple I to the world.

A producer usually has a the big picture in really great control, but thus can’t fully concentrate on the single aspects that can sometimes make or break a business, such as product manufacturing, accounting, marketing or HR – that’s why producers have to partner with the right performers at the right time in order to actually build the billion dollar business they have inside of them.

Skills Needed

• Ability to dream and act.
• Imagine what is possible.
• Design to capture the greatest value.

Design Considers

• Strategy and tactics.
• Terms of sale and the deal.
• Ownership and distribution.
• Customer experience.

• Ideas – Empathetic Imagination: See the big picture. Come up with and explore new ideas.
• Perspective – Patient Urgency: When bringing product to market, they’re able to work at multiple speeds and time frames, poised to seize opportunities.
• Action – Inventive Execution: Execute ideas with integrative and inventive mindset.
• Attitude – Taking Relative View of Risk: Perceptions of risk relative – they want to be a part of the future, more than they are afraid of losing what they have.
• Leading – Leadership Partnership: How good ideas become great businesses. Producers are not alone.

• Producers blend new opportunities within an old mode.
• Having a blockbuster idea requires real immersion in a subject, real willingness to come up with many ideas, and the ability to suspend judgment of ideas that may seem odd or out there.
• Blockbuster ideas begin with empathy.
• Build products around the customer’s needs.
• Look for opportunities and ideas to capitalize on present and future trends.
• Walk a mile in your customer’s shoes to uncover their irritation.