Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur by Richard Branson

Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur Reviews

• 
  Daniel Clausen

  There are phonies in this world, the highest class of which are bullshit artists, and then there are people who are genuine. These people aren't always the nicest people, so it's delightful when someone is simultaneously charming and genuine.
  
  That's what you get with Richard Branson.
  
  You also get someone who is absolutely dedicated to a good time. This book is in fact dedicated to convincing the reader that creating a quality business is a really good time... the best time that could be had, in fact. The book is also written in a tone that suggests you're just chatting with the CEO in a bar or something.
  
  That I'm not so sure about starting a business being a good time. I'm wary of death by 1,000 operational details.
  
  The book also presents Richard Branson as a kind of Jim Carrey in "Yes Man." "Give it a go!" Branson writes over and over again. Life is for those willing to "give it a go". Success is only gotten by those who give it a go. I think this is a great idea...and something I've struggled to unlearn. Most of my 30s have been spent learning how to say "no" -- and only "yes" when I've said two or three "nos" or finished some other lingering projects.
  
  Giving it a go burned me out a bit in my 20s. Pruning, focusing, organizing, consolidating have been the themes of my 30s. Richard Branson would not approve.
  
  The way I would write the lesson is -- "You have to give something a go! But choose wisely exactly what that thing is. If you're not sure what it is...test it out in small steps until you find that one thing you really want to give a go." That's a lot less sexy than the point Richard Branson wants to make.
  
  And Richard Branson is all about the sexiness.
  
  Where was I...?
  
  Oh yes, the virtue of saying "no."
  
  This is not a lesson for the entrepreneur. Branson introduces the key figure of Freddie Laker. He is not just Freddie Laker, he is the "four-times married Freddie". That's important because the entrepreneur doesn't fear the "four-times married" life. Someone like me cringes at the one-time married life.
  
  So, before you live like Richard Branson, an important question: Are you ready to survive three divorces on top of a number of business failures?
  
  Grit. An entrepreneur can survive rejection, several divorces, some bankruptcies, etc. I felt like that should have been part of the book. 1,000 nos on the way to success...
  
  One thing I also took about Richard Branson's thought process. Don't be afraid to ask elementary questions! That's a fantastic message for young people...or anyone really who is the process of becoming an independent thinker. I feel like the further we get away from primary school, the more frightened we get of asking elementary questions about what is going on around us.
  
  If this book sounds like your cup of tea, then I suggest you give it a go!
  
  
• 
  JK

  There were a few raised eyebrows when I announced this was what I was reading next. Despite being a non-fiction hater, I have a business degree, and I manage a team. I bought this book back in the university days, read a few pages, then left it to languish on my bookshelf, always favouring the excitement of the fiction world over business facts and advice. I should have stayed there.
  
  Branson is one of the main men in business today. Virgin is one of the most diverse brands on the planet - he has his fingers in rail and air travel, banking, telephony, health and fitness, and even has his own branded vodka. This autobiography had lots (and lots) to say about how he managed it all, but instead of taking us under his wing and giving true business advice, he simply told us what he'd done, how brilliantly it had worked, and implored us to follow his lead.
  
  Don't get me wrong, there is an entire chapter detailing mistakes made in the past, and how he learned from them. This is an excellent message, but the mistakes seemed to conveniently be the fault of something, or someone, else (such as, when a Virgin train derailed and killed a passenger, it was the fault of the rails, not the train), or mistakes that could easily be written off to experience and didn't exactly land Branson in a tonne of shit.
  
  I was looking, in the main, for ways in which to empower employees to own their roles and take joy from them. Branson is a man of the people, and I was convinced his chapter on being exactly that would give me some, if not all, of the answers. Turns out all he suggests are completely common sense strategies that any manager worth their salt will already have employed. He gives no examples of times he's empowered and motivated his own staff, and instead boasts that they just manage to find the right people to work for Virgin. As though absolutely no lazy bellends have slipped through the net somewhere; they are all amazing entrepreneurs.
  
  Let me be perfectly honest - I skipped most of this. Self-aggrandising, name-dropping, heavy on the factual statistics, light on the business advice, and no doubt heavily ghostwritten, it was another nail in my non-fiction coffin.
• 
  David McClendon, Sr

  Book Review: Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur
  By Richard Branson
  
  I think the best way to sum up this book is “He gets it.” One would think that a well-known business tycoon like Sir Richard Branson would not have a clue about how a small mom and pop venture works. The writing in this book indicates that he does get it.
  This book tells us some of the challenges that Branson has run into while being in almost every business imaginable. Branson’s Virgin Cola went up against Coca Cola and The Coca Cola Company fought him every step of the way. And that, sadly to say, is why most of us rednecks have never tasted a Virgin Cola. I really wish Virgin Cola had succeeded. If it had, maybe the mom and pop stores that made Coca Cola what it is today would not be bullied by Coke the way they are. Richard gets it.
  
  Richard talks about reviewing different business plans for possible investment. Sometimes he goes against the advice of the M.B.A.s and invests anyway. A business plan, with all its supporting data, is really just an educated guess. If the fundamentals are there, the business has a chance to succeed. If they aren’t there, sometimes the business will succeed anyway. I just wish Richard would invest in my business plan like he did many others he told us about in the book.
  
  The bottom line here is that Richard gives us some of the business education you can’t get at Harvard or anywhere else other than down in the trenches in the real world because Richard gets it.
  
  Book Review Policy
  My policy on book reviews is to give you my honest opinion of the book. From time to time publishers will give me a copy of their book for free for the purpose of me reading the book and writing a review. The publishers understand when they give me the book that I am under no obligation to write a positive review.
  
  If you will look at all my reviews, you will see that there have been occasions when I have written a negative review after having been given a book.
  
  I often provide links to books on Amazon.com where you can purchase books and help support the continued operation of this blog. However, I strongly encourage you to check out your local library. Many libraries now offer electronic borrowing for free.
  
  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255
  I obtained this book through the Wharton County Library. whartonco.lib.tx.us
  
  
• 
  Jeff

  He certainly has a different way of thinking from me. Or vice versa.
  
  It is even in the way that he writes; almost but not quite perfunctory.
  
  But while it is unlikely that I will start up a typical business, there are some absolute nuggets here, especially in the last chapter: 'Epilogue:Success'
  'Success for me is whether you have created something that you can be truly proud of.' (See my son John and his family :-)
  
  'What you are bad at actually doesn't interest people, and it certainly shouldn't interest you. However accomplished you become in life, the things you are bad at will always outnumber the things that you are good at. So don't let your limits knock your self-confidence. Put them to one side and push yourself towards your strengths.' p. 232
  
  That is SO important ...'What you are bad at actually doesn't interest people, and it certainly shouldn't interest you.' Worth a billion dollars, .... per word!
  
  A terrific book ... it's going to John, then we will lose it on a bus or train :-)
• 
  Satya

  Richard Branson an iconic entrepreneur, founder of Virgin group - shares many inspiring and wonderful anecdotes from his life as an entrepreneur. This book spans from brand, delivery, innovation, entrepreneurship to social responsibility (well, they are actually chapters of this book). The take away from this book is that in business, as in life, one has to protect against the downside - and make a difference!
  
  The brave may not live forever - but the cautious do not live at all....!
• 
  Craig New

  Sometimes his braggadocio drives me fucking mad, but at the end of the day I suppose he has a lot to boast about really. This read also came at an interesting time, when I was considering giving Qantas the flick for good after repeated shitty service, and if Branson's claims about the amount of money he's diverting from his airline profits into clean energy research are true then perhaps it's about time I made the switch. From a business perspective there was definitely a lot to be learned from in here.
• 
  Justin Ritter

  Great book. I enjoyed his view on business and the anecdotes about some of the ventures he started. Surely, if everyone was this engaged, the world might explode.
• 
  Annie Kostyk

  Another great Branson book. The only thing I didn't care for about to book was the incredible detail about the business proceedings, but I'm sure that was a favorite of many.
  
  Always inspirational. The really nice thing about Branson's writing is I feel he's sitting in the room with me talking to me.
• 
  Jana Elston

  A must read for small business owners or entrepreneurs . Loved it!
• 
  Sotiris Makrygiannis

  basic book with few good points, especially the personification of the brand but also at times highly apologetic and giving praise to his employees. looks like a brand trick with very few insights.
• 
  Madiba Mashao

  Very inspiring book. Changed my view on entrepreneurship :)
• 
  Pierre

  Business Stripped Bare is a book I struggled to enjoy. After reading a number of books charting the success of motivational speakers, personal coaches, freelancers, private investors, bloggers/writers and the like, I was looking forward to learning about how one man had almost singlehandedly built one of the world's most recognisable and successful brands, a brand that was active in a large variety of traditional economic sectors as well as new ventures. However, although there are certainly passages rich in interesting information littered throughout the book, these are unfortunately overshadowed by large segments in which it feels like you are stuck in a room, listening to Richard Branson endlessly bragging about his great achievements and unparalleled address book. Overall, I felt this book was deserving of *2.5 - decent enough to warrant a read if you are very interested in Branson's life and achievements, but I can't help but feeling that an independent biography would give a more balanced account of the man.
  
  Branson is by all measures exceptional. Years before Elon Musk so decisively disrupted the automotive and space industries - two building blocks of the US industrial powerhouse - in the mid 2000s and early 2010s, Branson's Virgin Group took on the huge challenge of creating a trans-Atlantic airline, a mainline British train line, and a telecoms group almost simultaneously, and largely succeeded in fundamentally changing these three sectors for the better. But perhaps his most impressive achievement has been maintaining his Virgin brand's identity throughout all of his ventures. It is something that Branson acknowledges has been key to his Group's success, and Business Stripped Bare's strongest moments are when he describes how he achieved this feat.
  
  The rest of the time, however, reading can feel like a chore. Here is how the majority of passages in the book are structured: Branson first shares an insight into a key moment in the history of the Virgin Group and details how he/the Group succeeded or failed (although mostly succeeded) in overcoming the challenges posed (the insightful part of the passage). He then details which great people helped him to achieve his objectives - often, this feels like nothing more than Branson bragging about the amazing people he knows, and does not actually add anything to the narrative. The point being made is that picking the right people, who are a good fit in terms of skills but also of personality, is key to success in any business; once that point is made, must we really have every one of Branson's partners listed to us? Finally, a great deal of passages include one or multiple anecdotes of Branson's antics and partying. Again, we get it: a fun, lighthearted approach to business is not incompatible with success - do we really need to read about that time when Branson got drunk at a cool work part for the third time?
  
  Business Stripped Bare feels more like a missed opportunity than anything else. It's a shame, as I felt there was more to learn from the process of overcoming challenges, as well as the mistakes Virgin made and how the Group learned from them, than the book gives us.
• 
  Mr Allan Goldie

  This is a great book to read even if you are not starting or running a company or business. I found the advice etc very useful in my style of life which is one of being structured and organised and treating people fairly and with respect.....which I guess is a good way to be not only in business but in life.
  I have always had respect for Richard Branson and admired his energy for work and of all he is involved in. I was a student in the 1970’s when Virgin Records started and I saw then the potential he and his team had and I still have my vinyl from those years and particularly my Tubular Bells album by Mike Oldfield which was the first purchase I made from the small Virgin shop in Aberdeen.
  In reading this book it showed me how he had grown the company and set up many others......the money deals to me were mind blowing but I saw his strength as an entrepreneur and his loyalty to his staff and teams he worked with. I would certainly have valued being a member of his company. He keeps on moving forwards in all he does and with a great sense of purpose which is what I try to do in my “retired” life.
  I am glad I chose this as one of the books to read on my relaxed holiday time and it has energised me to continue in my own positive work mode.
• 
  Toby Brennen

  I thoroughly enjoyed "Business Stripped Bare" by Richard Branson. A bit dated [2008, updated 2010] but the hindsight only adds to the wisdom shared from the man who is the only person in the world to lead 8 different businesses from scratch to billion dollar status, and the fastest to ever get to billion dollar status; he shares his insights on organization development, branding, business ethics, trusting people, and fun. We've come to expect successful people to be ruthless. In Sir Richard's own words, business is extremely competitive but you don't have to be mean. While he grudgingly admits he is wealthy, he just as readily proclaims that money is a poor of success, to quote "whether you die with a billion dollars in your account, or $20 under your pillow, is not that interesting. What matter most is whether you've created something special - whether you've made a real difference in people's lives." [4/5]
• 
  Shawn Lacagnina

  While there is nothing earth shattering in these pages, there is value that can be applied to any business career. It cannot be denied that Richard Branson is a force of nature. His approach to business and life is commendable. Reading Business Stripped Bare felt as if I was sitting with him and absorbing his stories. From his beginnings as a publication start up through 2010, he covers a wide range of industries and situations. What can you learn from hearing the thoughts, processes, and procedures - both successful and not? Virgin is a unique approach to business and Richard Branson wakes up every day to promote and protect that brand. This is an easy read and worth your time to explore.
• 
  Matt Kelland

  Branson comes across as a mixture between a very down-to-earth guy and a complete dick. On the one hand, he’s so rich that he just doesn’t live in the same world as the rest of us. On the other hand, he’s always very aware of the people who make his empire run. It’s hard to tread the line between patronizing and considerate, but I guess that’s pretty much where he lives.
  
  As advice for entrepreneurs go, it's better than most. Yes, it's loaded with platitudes, but he doesn't hesitate to tell it like it is and he's very aware that he's not selling a guaranteed formula for success, he's explaining a mindset that may, if you're lucky, work for you.
• 
  Paul C. Stalder

  More "A business stripped bare" than "business stripped bare.". With this work, Branson attempted to provide his own insights on the Virgin collective and what makes it successful. What you get more of, however, is Branson reminding you that it is successful. This book felt like 300-some pages of Branson reminding you his business succeeded. How? He seems to only sort of know. Can he help you reproduce it? Not really. I wish he would have explored further how to help your business evolve into something like what he is talking about. Instead, he simply states what worked for him, drops a few names, reminds you of his private island, and moves on. Good thing it was published by Virgin books.
• 
  Utpal Kalita

  A really interesting book. It provides a great insight into how the business functions. Sir Branson has indeed narrated his experience, a topsy-turvy one, in excellent way. The best part of the book ,which i liked, is however the ending chapters where he concentrates a lot on being socially conscious and being more environment friendly. His efforts towards environmental sustainability is noteworthy. The book is greatly detailed and Sir Branson tries to explain how he tries to keep intact businesses by focusing on the values of the brand.
• 
  Achyuth Kumar

  For quite some time, I've been trying to find out which type of leader I want to be, whom I most resemble in my inbuilt management style. I am elated to finally have found out the person in none other than Richard Branson! His leadership style of hiring great people, creating great teams and letting them do what they were hired to do is inspiring.
  He's the type of leader who wants everyone with him to succeed, and is unafraid to give them the freedom, power, responsibility and appropriate reward for them to succeed.
• 
  Reaksmey

  Before start reading this book, I have already read his autobiography "Losing My Virginity", and it feel like a short version of the prior book. In either way, it act as a reminder to what he has expressed and told in both books.
  But for starters, I would suggest you get "Losing My Virginity" and read that one instead. It includes everything in this one, and a very detail into Mr. Branson's life and business adventure.
  
  Great read nevertheless!
• 
  Kagimu Brian

  There is so much one can learn about starting and running a business, building a brand, being a good leader, learning from others, taking risks and making a positive difference in the world by reading this book. I loved the stories and lessons in it and i highly recommend it to entrepreneurs and friends. Thank you Richard Bransob
• 
  Ania

  Listening to the audiobook version, for the first time ever I had so much trouble trying to understand what the author/lector is saying. Might be because of the cheap microphone while Branson had been recording it at his house or maybe postproduction inexperience - either way, really hard to understand what he is trying to say. Especially if English is not your first language.
• 
  Louis

  Firstly really enjoyed that Richard Branson read the audio book. Enjoyed the further insights into what makes Virgin a success and the financial crisis, with a section about Virgin Money and Northern Rock's assets.
• 
  Stephanie

  This book is very refreshing. Richard Branson has the right attitude to life, business and people. Very interesting insight into what he believes makes good business and how to be utterly human while creating it.
• 
  James Kibble

  Whether you are into business or not this is worth the read! This man is a humble genius and a true legend of entrepreneurship as well as philanthropy! This book dives deep into the reality and truths of business. One of the best books I've read.