New business book tackles the silent struggle for entrepreneurs: How to keep up with your company as it grows.

Title: Survival to Thrival - Building the Enterprise Startup: Change or Be Changed
Published: 9 July 2019 (Mascot Books)
Authors: BobTinker, Tae Hea Nahm
https://www.amazon.com/Survival-Thrival-Building-Enterprise-...


“Everyone in the startup feels it—the CEO, the leaders, the team, and even the board: What drove success at one stage now gets in the way. Company change drives role change, which means everyone must change themselves…or be changed! The key is ‘Unlearning’. Unlearning is uncomfortable and stressful yet it catalyzes powerful growth.”


Change or Be Changed is not another ‘hero’s journey’. Instead, the book shares real world stories, anecdotes, practical infographics, and lessons learned from the authors and more than 15 successful entrepreneurs. What worked? What didn’t work? What they wish they had known? And what was just painful? 

The book was born out of the authors’ frustration that there is very little institutional knowledge or battle scars passed down to help leaders adapt and keep up as their company changes. All too often they get pushed aside or fired. 

They key to success is ‘Unlearning’

The book explores a common theme called ‘unlearning’. Unlearning what used to work - but no longer does - is as important as learning new roles. Unlearning allows everyone in the company, from the founders to the board, to adapt and succeed at the next stage of the company’s journey. Unlearning is uncomfortable and stressful, yet it catalyzes powerful personal and professional growth.

Real-world challenges for business leaders facing growth and change:


CEO struggles - The struggle of founding CEOs to navigate the journey from “early product-centric CEO” to “whole company CEO” and then “scale CEO”.  

Making the leadership leap - De-mystifying the successful leap to the next leadership role across different areas of the business (eg Sales, Product, and Finance).  What drives success?

When leaders struggle - The “superhero executive to mere mortal” problem.  The struggle between loyalty, learning, and decisiveness.  Why so many leaders get left behind as companies grow?  

When everything breaks - Growth points when everything suddenly falls apart — at 50 people, 150 people, and 450 people.

CEO-Board relationship - How it changes as the company grows? What are the sources of tension?  When is the board on your side? When are they not?

Building culture - How does culture become the soul of a company? Or how can culture become a straight-jacket can hold a company back? What are the cultural moments that define, reinforce, undermine, or change culture?

About the co-authors:

A 15-year entrepreneur-investor combo who learned---and unlearned---together. They worked together on two successful fast-growing startups, one acquired for $450M and the other IPO’d in 2014.

Tae Hea Nahm:

Tae Hea Nahm is co-founding MD of Storm Ventures, a Silicon Valley VC firm investing in tech and SaaS start-ups all over the world.

Tae Hea led the first investment in (and serves as Chairman of) MobileIron.  He was also the lead investor in Marketo. Early at Storm, Tae Hea incubated and served as the first CEO of Airespace.  Before becoming an investor, Tae Hea worked with dozens of startups as a technology attorney for leading law firm, Wilson Sonsini.

Like most investors (and Applied Math majors), he finds the patterns in startups and people that drive success and failure.

Bob Tinker:

Bob Tinker is a three-time entrepreneur.

Most recently, he was the founding CEO of MobileIron, which in eight years grew from ‘three people and a whiteboard’ to over $150M in annual revenue, more than 12,000 enterprise customers and IPO in 2014. MobileIron was named the #1 fastest growing tech company from 2009-2013 by the Deloitte Fast 500.  Robert previously was VP Business Development for wireless pioneer Airespace, which was acquired by Cisco for $450M in 2005.

Like most start-up CEOs, Bob isn’t into theories. He is a punch-line guy who wants to charge up the hill, knock down problems and build a great business. 

Bob and Tae Hea are available for interviews, panel events, podcasts, contributed articles, and blogs on topics related to start-up growth, leadership, and entrepreneurship.

Change or Be Changed is the second book in the author’s Survival to Survival series. The first, The Company Journey, was released in April 2018 tackles the problem of unlocking rapid and repeatable growth, coining the term Go-To-Market Fit, and is listed as #1, #2, and #3 on Google search for ‘Enterprise Startup Book’. 

For more information, contacting the authors, or to request an advance copy for book reviews, please contact: Helen@helencroydon.com.

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This book series is the result of entrepreneurs willingness to share their candid stories of success, failure, and unlearning. The authors would like to thank the following contributors:

Aaron Levie - CEO & Co-Founder – Box

Ben Horowitz - Founding Partner – Andressen-Horowitz

Frank Marshall - Former VP Engineering – Cisco, Convex

Fred Ball - Former CFO – Marketo, Webroot, Borland

Huan Ho-  CTO & Co-Founder – Rallyteam/Workday

Jason Martin -SVP Engineering – FireEye, CEO – Secure DNA

Jim Tolonen - Former CFO – Business Objects, Novell

Jon Miller - Co-Founder & CEO – Engagio, Co-Founder – Marketo

Mark Leslie - Lecturer – Stanford GSB, Founder & CEO – Veritas

Mark McLaughlin - Former CEO – Palo Alto Networks, Verisign

Mark Smith - Former SVP Sales – Rubrick, Arista Networks, InfoBlox, NetScreen

Mark Templeton - CEO – Digital Ocean, Former CEO – Citrix

Matt Howard - Managing Partner – Norwest Venture Partners

Phil Fernandez - Founder former CEO – Marketo. Boards – Collibra, PTC, Yext

Ray Carroll -VP Sales – Engagio, AVP Sales – Marketo

Sameer Dholakia - CEO – SendGrid

Tien Tzuo - CEO & Co-Founder – Zuora