No Man's Land: Where Growing Companies Fail

by Doug Tatum

If starting a company is difficult, leading a company once the business has caught fire is infinitely more so. Thousands of startups each year approach the dangerous transition that Doug Tatum calls No Man's Land—when they are too big too be considered small but still too small to be considered big.

Rapid growth is every entrepreneur's dream, but it never comes easily and is usually rife with dilemmas. Such growth should spark self-discovery, acquired discipline, and positive but difficult transition. Unfortunately, it often becomes an agonizng battle between the tendencies of a lonely entrepreneur and certain immutable laws of growth. The result is confusion, frustration, stagnation, loss of employee morale, and, at worst, financial failure.

The good news is that Doug Tatum knows exactly what it takes to get through No Man's a map, a high place from which to orient yourself, and navigational rules to help you track your progress.

Through case studies and stories of successes and failures, No Man's Land  will help you learn how

   • Align your growing company with its market.
   • Execute the necessary changes in your management.
   • Confirm that your financial model is scalable.
   • Attract money and make smart decisions about financing your business.
If you're an entrepreneur, this book will help you make your company all it can be and all you want it to be.

Genres: Business

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 13, 2007

Reviews

[Nixie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not very systematic, although has a few good insights from the battlefield.

[Vincent Chan]

founder of nasty gal recommended it

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

The directive to rid the company of founding members set a bad mood to the remainder of this book.

[Jason Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book provided some helpful insight on the common struggles of small businesses entering (or finding themselves stuck in) "no man's land" -- ie too big to be small and too small to be big.

Tatum suggests that no man's land kicks in around 100 employees and/or $10M in annual revenue -- both numbers eerily familiar to me as the founder and president of a small business with 95 employees that did just over $9M in revenue last year.

He offers several insights and recipes to plow through no man's land, or to retreat to the comfort of being a great, profitable small business. I found his suggestions helpful, though perhaps not particularly insightful.

Definitely recommended if you find your business in this position with no apparent way out.