No Experience Necessary
Why Betting on Yourself in Your Twenties Is the Best Decision You'll Ever Make
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
The co-founder and former CEO of Spin Master, a children’s entertainment powerhouse, reveals the secret business advantages of youth—and how having no experience can be the keys to finding success in your twenties.
Ronnen Harary co-founded the company that would become Spin Master when he was twenty-three, less than a year out of college, and living at home with his mother. He didn’t realize it at the time, but his youth was his biggest asset. Thirty years later, Spin Master now has twenty-eight offices around the globe, over 3,000 employees, and billions of dollars in annual revenue. Having helped create massive global toy lines, including Bakugan and PAW Patrol, Harary’s success has helped fuel innovation in the toy industry and in children’s animation around the world.
Structured around eleven core principles, No Experience Necessary makes the case that Harary’s success sprang from the incredibly powerful advantages of youth, and that we squander these advantages at our peril. This book, part delightful recounting of the growth of a beloved toymaking brand and part manifesto for young entrepreneurs, breaks down the many ways that early adulthood conveys superpowers that can fuel our success—while they last. Whether discussing the enhanced ability to take on and manage risk, the supercharged opportunities to find the right business partners, or the good will that naturally rains down on the young from mentors and elders, Harary spins powerful and entertaining lessons from his journey that will help readers find their own path.
In an age when ever-changing technology threatens to impact traditional entry-level jobs across the spectrum, Harary exhorts young readers to take control of their own destiny. No Experience Necessary is a rallying cry for dreamers to embrace the messy reality of building something meaningful from scratch.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this eye-opening debut business guide, Harary, cofounder of Spin Master, the children's toy and entertainment company behind the Paw Patrol and Bakugan franchises, makes the case that inexperience is an asset, not a liability, for young entrepreneurs. He shares how he started the company with two friends in 1994 when he was 23 and living at home. While they didn't have money or experience, they were fueled by the excitement of venturing out on their own for the first time and had "brains like sponges, soaking up tons of new information every minute." Over the past 30 years, the company has grown into the fourth-largest toy company in the world. Youth confers myriad advantages, Harary explains, including an elevated appetite for risk before the weight of obligations sets in, an outsize capacity to attract mentors, and an urgency in finding the right business partners while professional identities remain fluid. Throughout, he shares the origin stories for popular toys, like the mini BMX bikes Flick Trix. (A toy designer he was working with for another product showed him a prototype, and Harary, who instantly saw the potential, signed a deal in 20 minutes.) Harary blends entertaining storytelling with practical advice. The result is a powerful corrective to the myth that experience is a prerequisite for success.
