CELTICLADY'S REVIEWS: Birth of a Unicorn: Six Basic Steps To Success by Heather Wilde Guest Review and Giveaway!

Birth of a Unicorn: Six Basic Steps To Success by Heather Wilde

Publisher: Sunbury Press, Inc (November 11, 2020)

Category: Business: Women & Business, Entrepreneurship, Personal Finance, Self-Help/Motivational, Non-Fiction

Tour dates: April-May, 2021

ISBN: 978-1620063347

Available in Print 158 pages and ebook 184 pages

Description Birth of a Unicorn by Heather Wilde

Birth of a Unicorn: Six Basic Steps to Success is the story of what it takes to found a billion-dollar company -- also known as a unicorn. It's told from the perspective of a founding employee, and shows the years and years of emotional strain, stress and dedication that building a successful company takes -- and a framework to follow if you'd like to try it yourself. In this book, you'll find the true story behind one of Silicon Valley's famous companies on its rise to the top. Peek behind the curtain as you see the highs and lows from an insider perspective, on the roller coaster that is the start-up life. What emerges is a lasting friendship, a billion-dollar company, and an understandable framework of success for you to replicate.

Excerpt Birth of a Unicorn by Heather Wilde

In Birth of a Unicorn, Heather Wilde covers the many facets of building a business – and how ideas can come from anywhere in your life. Here is just one of those many examples. Like all great CEOs, Phil believed that if someone gives you a great idea, you should figure out a way to adapt it for your use. He always insisted that you give that person credit for their initial idea, but what you do with it from there is all you. One of Phil’s oldest friends was a naval submarine captain, and he spoke about him fondly and often—especially during our company All- Hands meetings.

On one occasion, he told us how they had an “Official Training Program” in the Navy, where seamen who are in the officer accession process could silently observe the essential meetings with senior officers on the ship to learn as much as they could before being promoted. He thought this idea was perfect for Evernote, especially as one of our core values was transparency. In practice, what it meant was that any employee would be allowed to join any open calendar meeting, up to two per month, outside their department.

The theory was that it would help them to learn what was going on elsewhere in the company—or at least what questions to ask to find out. In practice, it was not exactly how he had envisioned it. While it was true that everyone’s meetings were visible, and for the most part, people were willing to add you to a meeting invite if you asked, no one had time to join more meetings than they already had on their schedule.

The only people who had the opportunity to attend the meetings were interns, and since they were temporary employees, their attendance would not be the best use of their resources. Phil decided to scrap that program and try again—after all, being adaptable is a crucial tenet of entrepreneurship. The next version was called “Evernote University.”

This time, instead of making people sit in other meetings that they didn’t have time for and had no business sense to be in, he asked our team to come up with a list of hobbies and skills they’d be interested in learning more about off-hours. On the list were things like Flight Training, Butchery, Foraging, and Brewing.

Then we got some volunteers from the office for people who wanted to teach classes, and they received a supply budget. For classes that had no “volunteacher,” Evernote would give you a specific dollar credit for a similar course elsewhere. This program was much more successful, as people were more willing to have fun with each other, learning new, non-work skills than do more work. This success led to other non-traditional benefits added to the office.

When Phil heard that people were complaining about how long it was taking them to clean on the weekends, he added a housecleaning service. When people started getting stress headaches, he brought in-office mas- sages once a week.

We already had an onsite company gym available 24/7 and a variety of snacks. When people started complaining about weight gain, we brought in a chef to cater healthy breakfast and lunch meals. Over the years, we added an unlimited vacation policy and an additional bonus once you proved you had taken one, the option for a metro card or electric car subsidy, technology benefits, educational grants, and many other perks—but it all started with a submarine.

Review Birth of a Unicorn by Heather Wilde

Guest Review by

Sol Heather Wilde's memoir/self-help guide, 'Birth of a Unicorn: Six Basic Steps to Success,' is a book that brought me in from the first page and wouldn't let me put it down. Wilde was one of the first employees of the app Evernote, a successful start-up that now has over 200 million users worldwide.

It's hard to quantify success, especially in the tech start-up world, but Wilde has been on the team with many companies that were considered, 'Unicorns' or, companies that made a billion dollars. Of course, that isn't to say that she hasn't experienced setbacks of her own.

Between marriage problems, mental health issues and having to start over at different places multiple times, Wilde has dealt with her fair share of misfortunes. But her strong sense of purpose throughout all of these difficulties gave the memoir portion of this book heart and impact that make it relatable. I really appreciated the tone of Wilde's writing. She gives advice very freely, but gently, in a way that doesn't make you feel like she is talking down to you (as so many other advice books do).

This is a woman who has been through a lot, but managed to find success through all of it and her journey is both remarkable and an inspiration for everyone who is interested in working in the tech industry. I know I will be thinking of this book for a long time to come and retaking the assessment in the back that is meant to help you figure out what matters the most to you in your life and how to make sure that others things don't take precedence over those things.

I can recommend this book highly and I think everyone, regardless of their interest in the tech world, would enjoy reading it.

About Heather Wilde

Heather Wilde was the eighth employee of Evernote, where she oversaw the company's growth from thousands to 100 million customers. She has published popular games, trained Fortune 500 brands, advised hundreds of start-ups, and managed some major non-profit programs. At her non-profit, Serenze Global, and as a fractional CTO through her company ROCeteer, her award-winning work keeps the Unicorn Whisperer constantly traveling across the globe to find the next unicorn.