How to turn Attitude and Ingenuity into $40 Million dollars a year!

"I am a serial entrepreneur," says Eileen Gittins introducing herself. Eileen had started and ran two other start-ups before getting Blurb off the ground. After the dot.com bubble burst, Eileen, like so many others in her field, thought about what to do next. She returned to her love for photography, and wanted to find a way to share all her photos with friends.

"I was going to do a Web site, but you can't give a Web site as a gift." So, Eileen decided she would make a book. Not only was it extremely expensive and time consuming, but she also found it very hard to do. Eileen had great content and no way to share it in a book form, so she decided to start a company that would make it easy and inexpensive for the average person to design, and sell their own books.

"Holding a finished book with your name on the cover is truly an amazing feeling. It's one of those experiences everyone should have. I believe there's no good reason why it should take tons of time, technical skills, big bucks, or friends in high places to publish a book. So, I brainstormed with a few friends, and we developed a creative publishing service that was simple and smart enough to make anyone an author." Her target customer was every blogger, cook, photographer, parent, traveler, poet, pet owner, marketer, — almost everyone!

The year was 2004, and the publishing world was racing away from printing to embrace digital platforms as its ticket to the future. Then along comes Eileen with a business plan that moved in the opposite direction by proposing a model for going from digital back to print. Some people thought she was a lunatic. But she didn't let their short visions affect her attitude.

Finally, a Venture Capitalist decided to bet on Eileen's plan despite how crazy it sounded. Seven years later, Blurb, the San Francisco based company that emerged from Eileen's contrarian vision, has grown into a runaway success. The Web site launched in 2006, and business is almost doubling every year. At peak volume during the holiday season, Blurb processes a book every 1.5 seconds!

The company's revenue grew from $1 million to $30 million in two years. In 2008, they published more than one million books, obtained over one million registered users, and a global footprint that extends to 60 countries. The company rang up $45 million in sales in 2009, and continues to publish for hundreds of thousands of authors around the world.

When attempting to raise money as a female CEO, Eileen was surprised when another female executive asked, "Do you find it to be extra difficult to get past your being a woman to raise funds for your business?" Eileen had never thought about her gender as being any kind of an issue. She raised lots of money as a female CEO because she had the right attitude, and never allowed herself to be hung up on supposed handicaps like gender.

Her advice to other entrepreneurs is to "be authentic and do something you love. It is hard to build a company, but it is tremendously rewarding if it is personally gratifying to you. When building a business, you can't do it all. You have to stay focused. At Blurb, we love books, and love helping other people obtain their own published books. We've built an Internet platform for people to produce their own bookstore-quality books. That's it. That's what we do."

Solid Gold Performance...

Commits to the Vision. Clarifies the right Role. Courageously achieves the Mission.

How Did Blurb Become a Gold Mine? By Superior:

Mission...     Operations...     Financial Management...

Click on Function... Insert a Do It in your Strategic Plan... then Just DO IT!

Your Thoughts and Observations...

"It is our choices... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." ~ J.K. Rowling